Fortuna Sittard

[FM_TNSSO]

A great achievement getting to the semi final of the Europa League and can only help boost the reputation of the club and bring in better players

Again, I totally didn't expect it! But yes, it continues to grow our reputation which in turn should help us attract better players to the club.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

END OF SEASON 2025/26 REVIEW

Another solid showing in the Eredivisie as we finish 4th for the third season in a row. Europa League football will once again be ours next season and again give us a platform to increase our stature across the continent.

Meeting Ajax in just the third round of the cup this season saw our run come to a premature end, but losing to the best side in the country is forgiveable.

Our biggest achievement this season is probably going one better than last year in the Europa League, reaching the semi final. Being knocked out by Aston Villa isn't anything to be ashamed of and the English clubs are always strong across the European competitions.

After another good year in the Europa League, it has seen our European club ranking up to 66th, which moves us above AZ in 68th! Our reputation continues to strengthen!

Overall Squad Stats

The New Arrivals

The Best 11

Our core fanbase has increased slightly this season, whilst our social media following is closing in on the 1 million mark!

The board firmly feel we have established ourselves as a top club in the country now as the plan for the next 5 years now includes European qualification as a minimum requirement.

The Commercials

Finances

Work on the new stadium will begin this Summer and in 3 years time we will upgrade from a 12,500 seater stadium to over 18,000 which should help the growth of the football club.

And we are getting our facilities closer to the top clubs in the country too as the board announce more investment into the training centre.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 28
One Player Departure Leaves Me Absolutely Gutted
7th August 2026

I've had three of our older players retire this Summer. Leroy Fer barely played last year, but the other two provided essential cover at both right and left back and will need replacing.

Incoming: I'm extremely happy with my new left back! Gijs Smal comes in from AZ and it's great to add another Dutch player to the ranks. I had to fork out £3.7 million to bring him here (with £1.1 million up front and the rest over the next 3 years), but he should prove well worth the investment and should sort our left back position for at least the next 3-4 seasons.

Outgoing: Then it was a case of one striker out, one striker in. Kaj Sierhuis leaves the club on a free transfer as his contract comes to an end. He was our top scorer in my first season, but last year he only managed 1 Eredivisie goal in 21 appearances and even from the bench, that isn't good enough. He moves to PEC Zwolle.

Incoming: The player that comes in to replace Sierhuis is Luis Amarilla who signs from Mazatlan for just £110k. He can provide good competition to Tigges up top and comes with a good scoring record in the Mexican league where he banged in 50 in 90 games.

Incoming: Amarilla is joined on his first day at the club by Italnian central midfielder, Filippo Ranocchia. The 25 year old strengthens us and becomes a direct replacement for Leroy Fer and I was happy to pay Sampdoria their asking fee of £1.5 million to sign him (£1 million up front and £500k over 2 years).

Ougtoing: Ranocchia was also a necessary signing in centre mid because of the departure of Deroy Duarte as well. Duarte's first team opportunities have become less and less as each season has gone on and he leaves at the end of his contract to join ADO Den Haag.

The draw for the Europa League third qualifying phase pits us against a side that have a lot more European experience than we do.

Outgoing: My next sale was one I desperately didn't want to make. I only signed Luka Vrbancic last Summer for £5.5 million and the 21 year old impressed in his first season with us, scoring 4 goals and getting 8 assists in 25 league games. However, he had a £10.25 million minimum fee release clause in his contract and Anderlecht have activated and stolen him away from us. I'm gutted and I tried to offer the youngster a new deal to stay with us, but we couldn't get anywhere near the £37.5k per week wage that Anderlecht have offered him.

Incoming Loan: It was important to invest the Vrbancic money wisely and I feel I have brought in a pivotal loan signing for the season. Pablo Torre comes in from Barcelona and we will cover 60% of his wages and over the course of the season, the loan will cost us a fee of £1.6 million, but he could be a game changer for us!

Incoming: I also needed a second right back after the retirement of Omar Elabdellaoui and I feel I picked up a bit of a bargain by bringing in 24 year old Mexican, Daniel Blanco from Club America. He cost us just £1.8 million (all paid up front) and is already worth double that upon joining the club.

The squad is starting to take shape nicely for the season ahead.

And clearly the bookies feel like we are continuing to improve as they have us pegged for a 5th placed finish this season (the highest they have ever predicted us) and our odds of winning the title are also the lowest they've been at 100/1.

Pre season saw us play 5 games and score 3 goals in every single one against a mix of foreign opposition and domestic clubs from the division below.

Our first competitive game of the season was in Israel as we beat Maccabi Tel Aviv in the first leg of our Europa League qualifier. Great to see Luis Amarilla scoring on his debut! We're in control of the tie now with the home leg to come.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 29
August Is A Good Month For Us
1st September 2026

Our opening game of the Eredivisie season came at home to Go Ahead Eagles and saw left back Gijs Smal make his debut for the club. And what a debut it was as the new man bagged 2 assists and scored a goal as well, earning him the man of the match award! I felt really good about his signing this Summer and he has immediately proved he could be a big, big player for us over the next few years.

After beating Maccabi Tel Aviv 4-2 in the first leg of our Europa League qualifier, we simply needed a draw to progress in the competition! But we weren't taking it easy in the home leg and absolutely battered them, smashing in 8 goals in the process, with 4 different players getting braces! An incredible performance and I'm sure nobody wanted to draw us in the final qualifier to get through to the league stage.

It would be Swiss side, FC Lugano, that were now standing between us and a third straight season in the league phase of the Europa League.

We've been in sensational goalscoring form in the early stages of the season, but it was our defensive performance that stood out against VVV Venlo as we stopped them having a single shot against us!

The goals were flowing again back in the Europa League, but for both sides, not just us! Home advantage had been on our side in the first leg, but we definitely hadn't taken full advantage of it and only take a 2 goal lead to Switzerland when I'd have liked a much bigger buffer.

Before that, we had the small matter of FC Groningen to take care of in the Eredivisie, and take care of them we did to keep up our 100% winning start to the season.

Outgoing: Time for another outgoing transfer as Suphanat Mueanta leaves the club to join Wolfsburg. He's only been with us for 1 season, but when someone comes along and offers you £8 million for a player you paid less than a million for just a year ago, it's really hard to say no!

It will be Europa League football for us again this season as we get through our qualifier with Lugano. We only managed a draw out at their place, but it was enough. There were definitely some nervey moments there when they were 1-0 up though!

The fixtures for the league phase are revealed and we have a good mix of sides to play again. However, with none of the sides we'll face having a coefficient ranking above 31 and three being outside the top 100, we have to fancy our chances of getting through to the knockout stages again.

In the domestic league, we faced an FC Utrecht side that will look to go one better than last year and break into the top 4, and twice they led against us in a tough game. We showed great character to come from behind twice and ****** a point though.

August has been an unbeaten month for us and we sit 3rd in the league at this early stage of the season.

In fact, August is generally always a good month for us! We have only ever lost 1 game in the month of August over the last 4 years!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 30
Scoring For Fun!
4th October 2026

Incoming: Transfer deadline day saw me invest in an 18 year old centre back for the future. Mauricio Diaz joins us from Nacional for £2 million and hopefully the young Uruguayan will maximise his potential at the club and become an important player in the future.

That was the final deal for us in a window that saw Feyenoord spending over £100 million!!!

Althought they did raise £98 million of that with the sale of Santiago Gimenez to Bayern Munich!

Here's some of the other big deals of the window across Europe (over £30 million).

I threw my new 18 year old in at the deep end and straight into the starting lineup against Excelsior. He gave a good account if himself scoring a 7.2 match rating on our way to a 3-1 win.

Not for the first time this season, we had more than 20 shots at goal in our next game. Heracles are likely to struggle this year and based on the evidence of this result, it could be a long hard season for them.

Our first Europa League 'league phase' game of the season would possibly be our toughest fixture as we faced Sevilla out in Spain. However, something feels different about our side this year and there is a fearless nature amongst the squad and we proved just that as we come back to Holland with all 3 points!

Having to play through qualifiers as well for the Europa League makes the schedule of games in the first couple of months of the season quite rough on the players fitness. With that in mind, I was almost forced into 8 changes to my starting lineup against Vitesse due to tireness in the side. But again, things feel different this season like I have more cover and better cover across my entire squad and that was proven as we overcame our opponents with ease!

My new 18 year old defender....YES DEFENDER...got 4 assists in that game!!

Back in Europe we were again in incredible goalscoring form hammering 8 past HJK! The fact that we have scored 5 or more goals in 5 seperate games already this season is absolute madness!

So two games into the Europa League league phase and we top the table and at this point are looking very good to go on and qualify for the knockouts again.

With all the goals we've been scoring of late, we also proved that we can do it the hard way with a solid defensive display as well, with a 1-0 win over PEC Zwolle back in the league.

Alongside Ajax, we remain unbeaten in the Eredivisie after 8 games and sit just a couple of points behind them at the moment. The best start we've had in my four seasons here and hopefully we can keep this up!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 31
First Defeat Of The Season
22nd November 2026

When I started my career at Fortuna Sittard, Willem II were in the second tier of Dutch football, but despite that, they have a good record against us and we hadn't beaten them in our 3 previous meetings. However, we quickly put a stop to that little run as we bang in another 5 goals. I'm literally running out of superlatives for my team at the moment...we are playing some amazing stuff!

Heerenveen would present a tougher challenge and we were definitely put through our paces by them, but in the end we just proved a little too strong for them and this is a good win away from home.

And that was a record breaking win for us on two counts!

PSV at home were next for us and let's just remind ourselves of last season's crazy result in this fixture!

The score may not have been utter madness this year, but it was again a comfortable victory for us! That's now 7 games in a row that PSV have failed to beat us and we're pretty much proving to be their bogey team!

We turn our attentions back to the Europa League and Austrian side, LASK, were up next for us as we looked to make it 3 wins from 3 in the league phase. LASK gave a good go of it and played some nice stuff to be fair to them, but a late Alen Halilovic top bins banger from outside the box and then a nice strike from 15 yards out from Jobe Bellingham ensures we keep up our 100% record in the competition.

After 10 straight wins in all competitions, FC Emmen finally stop our streak by holding us to a draw. It was gutting at the end though as we scored such a well worked goal in the 90th minute with 6 first time passes before putting the ball in the back of the net, only for VAR to rule it off for the narrowest of offsides.

We were straight back to winning ways though against Sparta Rotterdam with an utterly dominant performance. The result never looked in doubt from the off!

Then we made it 4 wins from 4 games in the Europa League with a good victory over Braga who are probably the best team we've played so far in this year's competition.

There was a brace for Steffen Tigges in that game and he has started this season in great form, already scoring 12 times in 19 appearances in all competitions. Considering I only paid £1.2 million to bring him here, he's got better and better each season and is now worth around £10 million! I do wonder if any clubs will come calling for him if he keeps scoring the way he is. There is minor interest from Club Brugge at the moment, but I'm not worried about them - it's if any of the big German clubs look to bring him back to his home nation that I might start getting a bit nervey.

Tigges was rested for the game against AZ, but his replacement Luis Amarilla came in and scored a brace of his own, as we twice pegged back AZ to earn a point at thier gaff.

Tijani Noslin is a player I could have sold in the Summer, but decided to offer him a new deal as he has played an important rotation role for me over the last 3 seasons. This year he is doing really well and has 8 goals in 11 games in all comps, so he will actually be sorely missed over the next 6 weeks that he could potentially be out of action.

We haven't lost a single game in any competition so far this season, but if any team was going to bring that run to an end, it was Ajax, who themselves hadn't lost in 19 league games going back into last season. And they did just that....*******!

It's incredible really to think that we have only lost that one game all season and we're still only 3rd as both Feyenoord and Ajax have won 13 of their 15 games! It shows just how tough it is going to be for me to topple the best 2 teams in the country! On the plus side, we do at least have a 10 point gap back to AZ in 4th!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Great season so far. It’s so hard against the big teams as they always make a fortune selling players in the summer windows and reinvesting it

Tell me about it mate. I'm selling players for around £5-12 million and they are making £50 million + sales! On top of that, they have champions league money too! If we can get ourselves into Europe's elite competition then it will definitely help bridge the gap.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 32
Player Interest Is High As The January Window Opens
14th January 2027

After suffering our first loss of the season at the hands of Ajax, it was all about how we would bounce back from that. Playing out in Israel against much lesser opposition gave us the perfect platform to do that and despite some surprisingly going behind on 53 minutes, we turned the game around in the final half hour to get the win.

Being the only side in the league phase of the competition with a 100% record means we are perfectly poised to skip the knockout playoff this year and go straight through to the last 16.

Good to bounce back immediately in the league as well, as we hammered NAC at their place.

Feyenoord were up next for us and it would take us to the half way point of the season. If we win, we would jump them in the table to 2nd place, but if we lose it would see the top two start to pull away from us again.

It would seem that we are not quite the level of the two biggest clubs in the country just yet as we are beaten. Although I can't help wondering if the game might have gone differently if Alen Halilovic had put away his 16th minute penalty and given us the lead.

When you've just lost a game, the ideal fixture to follow it up with is against the team that is bottom of the league and that's the situation we find ourselves in against VVV-Venlo. We took full advantage and record an easy win, with Luis Amarilla scoring his first hat trick for the club.

One more win in the Europa League would be enough for us to secure a top 8 finish in the league phase and guarantee our passage through to the last 16. Despite going 1-0 down away at Lens, we ended up getting that win fairly comfortably and it's fair to say we have breezed through the competition so far this year, with 6 wins from 6 and scoring 25 goals in the process!

In the Eredivisie, we chalked up another win as well against Go Ahead. The first half saw us hammer their goal without managing to score, but the second half was much more clinical for us and we kicked off the scoring with a great goal from Pablo Torre as he curled an effort into the top corner from just outside the box.

Our last game of 2026 was in the second round of the cup against Heracles. We put 6 past them in the league already this season and we put another 5 past them here as we cruise into the next round.

One of the tournament favourites are out of the competition at this early stage as PSV Eindhoven were knocked out on pens by their local rivals from the league below.

With us doing so well this season, I fully expect interest in our players during this January transfer window to be high and on the day of the window opening, I already have to fend off bids. The only one of the three that could end up leaving this window is Cas Odenthal as he has reacted badly to me rejecting that West Brom bid and handed in a transfer request off the back of it and it could now just be a case of me maximising the sale and getting as much as I can for the centre back.

Ten days into January and for now, I have managed to hold the squad together and our first game back after the Winter break is against FC Groningen and Luis Amarilla took no more than 16 seconds to open his account for the calendar year of 2027. Gijs Smal doubled our lead with a fantastic free kick that powered into the top left corner. From that moment, it never really looked like we would lose the game and it's great to kick off the new year with a win.

So 20 games into the Eredivisie season now and at least we are giving Ajax and Feyenoord something to think about, as nobody else in the league can live with them! It's still crazy though that we have won 15 of our 20 games this season and we are still 6 points off the lead!!

There may be a lot of interest in my players during this window, but the top European clubs are also highly interested in my services as Arsenal come calling...being the team I support, this was a tough one to turn down I won't lie!

The players rewarded my loyalty to them with an easy win against Excelsior in the cup and we progress to the quarter final.

Ajax have crashed out of the competition and that will make Feyenoord the favourites to lift the trophy this year. But does that make us 2nd favourites now maybe?

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 33
Further Strengthening At Centre Back
19th February 2027

Incoming: With the potential upcoming departure of Cas Odenthal, I have already turned my attention to buying another centre back. I'm really pleased to bring Xavier Mbuyamba to the club and add another Dutch player to the squad. The 25 year old has spent some of his younger years at the likes of Barcelona and Chelsea so will have learned from some of the best coaches in the world and trained alongside some of the best players in the world. He played most of his first team football for FC Volendam during a 4 season period before moving to Montpellier last Summer in a deal worth £2.2 million. He hasn't managed to break into their first team squad and the French club decided to take the profit when I offered them £3.4 million to bring him back to Holland and revamp his career.

With passage through to the next round of the Europa League already guanteed, I rotated the squad heavily against Rapid Wien and made 5 subs at half time too. We still managed to get the win and make it 7 from 7 in the league phase of the competition.

Back in the Eredivisie we had a preview of our cup encounter with FC Utrecht and the psychological edge will be with us after winning here. Not the most entertaining game, but a solid result and a clean sheet for new defencer, Xavier Mbuyamba on his debut for the club.

In our final league phase game of the Europa League, I rested every player I possibly could for the match against Atalanta, so it came as no real surprise to me that we were well beaten, but we can swallow this one.

Despite that defeat, we still finish top of the tree in the league phase of the competition.

Back at full strenth and with most of the starting 11 well rested, we were able to cruise past Excelsior in the Eredivisie.

Outgoing Loans: Transfer deadline day comes and throughout this window, I have allowed two wide forwards to leave on loan as they were unhappy at their lack of first team starts for the club this year. Both players have gone out to Belgium as Tijani Noslin has moved to Standard Liege and Arianit Ferati has gone to Kortnijk.

Incoming: That left me short of numbers in the wide positions and I have brought in a bit of Dutch experience as ex Aston Villa winger, Anwar El Ghazi, signs for the club from Le Havre for £1.4 million (paid all up front).

Incoming: With just an hour of the window remaining and with cash to spare, I moved to bring another centre back to the club. 25 year old Argentinia, Gaston Avila, was struggling to get into the Ajax starting lineup but he is definitely good enough to become a key figure in my back 4 and I picked him up for just £3.1 million (all paid up front).

With the window closed, here are the biggest transfers across Europe over the last month (over £20 million).

Avila went straight into the starting lineup and was a rock at the back, recording a debut match rating of 8.2, as we comfortably beat FC Utrecht in the quarter final of the Dutch Cup!

And it's the semi final draw we wanted to avoid, although having home advantage could prove massive as we face Feyenoord. Surely the winner of our game will go into the final as hot favourites to lift the cup!

As I went to pick my squad for the Heracles game back in the league, I realised I've made a **** up with the signing of El Ghazi last month. He's already played for two sides this year and can't actually play for us this season!!

We made hard work of it against Heracles but we did get over the line with another 3 points, which is good as anything else would have been unacceptable against a side struggling in the bottom half of the table.

There is no doubt that with 11 games of the season remaining, it is very much a 3 horse race for the title and we are very much involved!

Meanwhile, the draw for the last 16 of the Europa League pits us against Sparta Prague.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 34
Juggling Multiple Competitions
19th March 2027

Alen Halilovic was on top form as he scored a hat trick to lead us to a good away win at Vitesse. They are seriously struggling this year and find themselves in a relegation battle and it would be a bit of a shock for them to go down, considering they have been the best of the rest behind the top 3-4 teams in the country for years!

Halilovic has been one of the players of my career so far, playing an important role for me since I took over at the club, maintaining some extremely impressive average ratings in the Eredivisie as well!

It was time for the semi final of the KNVB Beker and a massive clash with Feyenoord. Both sides go into the game knowing they will be favourites in the final, but we have a terrible record against them and haven't won in 6 games including a semi final defeat in this competition two years ago as well!

It was a game that saw both sides have their fair share of chances, but it was us who just about edged the result by the narrowest of margins to make it to our first ever cup final under my management! Now the question is whether we can go on and finish the job to lift the Dutch Cup for the first time in the club's history!

It's Sparta Rotterdam who now await us in the final.

We immediately turn our attention back to the league for now and it's a solid 1-0 at home against Zwolle. We weren't at our best in the attacking department, but a good defensive display ensures victory.

Out in Prague for the first leg of our Europa League tie, it was both my full backs that scored goals along the way to a 3-0 win to put us firmly in control for the return leg at home.

With those 3 goals, we have now beaten our own record for the most goals scored in a Europa League season and we could have a few more games to potentially play yet! It's fair to say we are really starting to carve out a bit of a reputation for ourselves across Europe now and people that would have never heard of us 5 years ago will now recognise the name!

As I take a look around Europe, I can't quite get over the sheer dominance of Real Madrid in La Liga this season. They have won an incredible 25 of their 27 league games this year and are running away with the title!

The schedule has been busy of late as we juggle multiple competitions and it's taken it's toll as we lose a game we should have won against Willem II in the Eredivisie. Both Ajax and Feyenoord will be delighted to see this result!

Both our title rivals picked up wins in their games and we have dropped off the pace of the top 2.

Despite that disappointment, I needed my lads to keep their heads and ensure we didn't let our lead slip against Sparta Prague in the Europa League. We did a professional job and a couple of late goals ensure we increased our aggregate score by a couple and it's been a fairly comfortably tie for us to move into the quarter finals.

Back in domestic competition, we drop more points though at home to Heerenveen and with that, we can probably kiss goodbye to any chance of winning the league this season.

Both of my strikers have just hit a period in the season where neither of them can score for love nor money!

There's only 7 games to go and with a 7 point gap to the top 2, I think it's fair to say we might just have to settle for 3rd this year. There's not much chance of us giving up that spot to AZ who are 13 points behind us, but as far as our challenge to the top 2 goes, it almost feels like we have done everything to live with them for as long as possible this season but have now just run out of steam.

Maybe we can't catch Feyenoord in the Eredivisie, but we might just be able to cause them some Europa League heartache, although I'm under no illusions how tough a tie this is going to be for us to get through!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 35
A Game I Will Simply Never Forget!
15th April 2027

PSV Eindhoven away is always going to be a difficult game and on the face of it, we should probably be happy with a point. But when you look at the match stats, it's bitterly disappointing we didn't win this game based on the amount of chances for each side.

This year's youth intake is described as a potential golden generation, but I have absolutely no idea how they come to this conclusion as in my eyes, it's a pretty poor intake!

Raymond Zwaan is tipped as the most elite talent coming through the ranks this year, but to me he looks bang average!

Hamdi Demir is also supposed to have a big future ahead of him, but I just don't see it!

As far as the world's top 50 wonderkids goes, it's Barcelona's Lamine Yamal that leads the way, whilst there is a couple of youngsters from the Eredivisie appearing in the top 10. Our very own Mauricio Diaz enters the list this season at number 37!

Back to the action now and we're not quite giving up on giving Ajax and Feyenoord something to think about as we beat FC Emmen in the Eredivisie.

On a personal level for us, we are now guaranteed to finish 3rd and that will be a new club record.

We would play at home in the 1st leg of the Europa League QF against Feyenoord and it was imperitive that we got a win to give us something to protect in the away leg. We did just that, but it is just a one goal lead and there is everything still to play for but we've given ourselves a chance of progressing.

Weirdly we are on a run of fixtures that reads, Feyenoord, Sparta, Feyenoord, Sparta as league, Europa League and a cup final combine. Our next match would be a warm up for the cup final!

With 3 games to play in the next week, the worst thing that could possibly happen is losing your number 1 goalkeeper for all 3 games! **** sake!

Stand in keeper Michael Verrips came in and kept a clean sheet though as we ran riot at the other end against Sparta and I think it's fair to say this gives us the psychological edge before the cup final in a week's time.

Unfortunately for us, Ajax and Feyenoord just keep winning as well so we haven't closed the gap on either of them. Just 4 games of the season remain.

We had the opportunity to get the better of Feyenoord on another level though as we went away to them for the 2nd leg of our Europa League tie. With a 3-2 lead on our side, we increased that to 4-2 inside just 6 minutes to pile on the pressure for Feyenoord. However, we knew that would force them to come hard at us and within 20 minutes they had reduced the deficit to one again. It looked so much like we were going to knock out our rivals and progress to the semi finals, right up until the 95th minute of the match when Feyenoord finally levelled the scores with one of the last kicks of the game! Absolutely gutting for us and we had to try to compose ourselves for another half an hour of football! That last minute goal completely took the wind out of our sails and left us clearly deflated and Feyenoord took advantage scoring twice to send them through to the next round. Or so they though...in an incredible display of determination and grit, we fight back to take the game to a penalty shootout and this time it was our turn to score a last minute equalizer! What an incredible and emotional game of football this was and no matter what happened in the shootout, it had been a spectacle across the two legs. Unfortunately, with the home fans on their side, the pressure got to us and 3 missed pens out of 3 means that Feyenoord progress to the semi final! But this is a game I'll never forget!

 

[misterioBean]

What a bummer to lose like that after that game. But it's a good indicator you are finally able to really challenge the top teams of the Eredivisie. Also I really envy your youth intakes, I just got mine and it's not very good once again ahaha

Btw I've been seeing you have some players who played for Vitória SC in the past, always nice to see some of our players recognized in the game.

Looking forward to the end of the season

 

[FM_TNSSO]

What a bummer to lose like that after that game. But it's a good indicator you are finally able to really challenge the top teams of the Eredivisie. Also I really envy your youth intakes, I just got mine and it's not very good once again ahaha

Btw I've been seeing you have some players who played for Vitória SC in the past, always nice to see some of our players recognized in the game.

Looking forward to the end of the season

Miguel Reisinho has been one of the most important players for me throughout the save and my captain for the last couple of seasons too! Rosier has also done a much better job for me than I expected!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 36
KNVB Beker Cup Final
18th April 2027

So here we are and my first chance to lift a trophy as Fortuna Sittard manager. We will face Sparta Rotterdam in the final!

Runs To The Final

It's no surprise to see us as the favourites for the game as we have only lost once in nine games against them under my management, winning the other 8. Our goals record against them is really impressive too!

However, we don't go into this in full strength. Having to play 120 minutes against Feyenoord in the Europa League just 4 days earlier was not ideal and there is some tiredness amongst the side. On top of that, my number 1 keeper and my top goalscorer are both out injured!

Lineups

Watch The Game (In Extended Highlights)

12' Big save from Verrips.
25' Big chance missed from Tigges.
30' Rots gets up at the back post but head over.
33' Tigges heads just over. Close!
35' Reisinho shot produces good save.
37' FORTUNA GOAL - Pablo Torre (Assist; Pierini)
38' FORTUNA GOAL - Pierini
77' Pierini chance from a narrow angle. Saved.
81' FORTUNA GOAL - Reisinho (Assist; Vita) - what a goal!
91' Tigges head over from close range.

So there we have it. A comprehensive performance in the final and we lift our first trophy under my management...and the first Dutch Cup for Fortuna Sittard ever! A proud day for me and for the side!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

nice and easy win there and great to get your first piece of silverware and hopefully will be the first of many now

Great to get the first one under our belts! Onwards and upwards from here I hope!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 37
Final Four Games
17th May 2027

With us out of the Europa League and having won the Dutch Cup, we had the small matter of just 4 league games to play to finish off the season! And that started with a home win against 4th placed AZ!

We have had our best season ever...which is obviously amazing! But in our league game with Ajax, they were keen to remind us that we are still miles off the pace of the best team in the country!

All I could ask is that the team respond in the right manner and they did just that against NAC.

Our final game of the season is against Feyenoord and I feel like we have had a bit of a rivalry brewing with them this season. We knocked them out of the Dutch Cup, whilst they knocked us out of the Europa League. Now we have an opportunity to have the last laugh of the season and keep them from having any chance of winning the Eredivisie.

It feels great to beat them on the last day and have the final say of the season! A great performance in front of our home support to finish off an excellent season!

Feyenoord can take some solace in the fact that Ajax won their final game so even if they'd have beaten us they still wouldn't have pipped them to the title. We can also feel a little sorry for ourselves for finishing 3rd as our 80 points would have been enough to secure 2nd in any of the last 3 seasons!

Pablo Torre scored in our last game and with him returning to Barcelona this Summer after the season on loan with us, it's worth taking a look at a player that has been a star for us this year. 21 goals and 17 assists in all competitions is incredible for any player at any level and it's just a shame I don't have nearly £11 million to be able to buy him!

That victory over Feyenoord does also see us break two more club records!

With all the deals I have done over the past few years having clauses where we need to pay fees in future years (combined with the fact we now have £21 million loan to pay back on the new stadium project), we actually start next season with a negative transfer budget, which means players need to be sold before I can buy anyone!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

END OF SEASON 2026/27 REVIEW

Our best league campaign ever, which resulted in a number of club records being broke. Enough said!

Our first ever Dutch Cup win!

Finishing top of the league phase of the Europa League was an impressive achievement, winning 7 of our 8 games. Unfortunately, the run came to an end via a penalty shootout against Feyenoord but again I feel like we have done ourselves proud this season in Europe.

The New Arrivals

The Best 11

Club Awards

League Awards

Despite winning our first trophy this year and our best ever performance in the Eredivisie, we have lost nearly 50,000 social media followers this year, which seems strange to me. On the flip side, we now have over 5,000 fans on the season ticket waiting list, so when our new stadium is built, we should have no issue selling those extra tickets which will bring extra income to the club.

As far as the board are concerned, we need to ensure we continue finishing in the top 3/4 places in the league year on year now.

Commercial Summary

The Finances

As a club, our reputation is on the rise and we are into the top 40 in Europe!

Domestically, only the official big three have a better reputation than us now too!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 38
Sales Are Required
6th August 2027

Incoming: This is a deal I secured a few months ago, signing English centre back Kaelan Casey on a free transfer as his contract with West Ham comes to an end. Hopefully, he will go on to be as much of a success as Will Fish has been for us! Casey spent last year on loan with VVV-Venlo so already has a year of Eredivisie football under his belt.

He comes in as the replacement for Rodrigo Guth who leaves the club at the end of his contract. He's been a decent squad rotation option without ever being my first choice.

We haven't improved the facilities at the club for a little while, so I was pleased when the board approached me to discuss upgrades to the youth setup at the club!

Unfortunately, we have an early setback to our new season. Steffen Tigges has scored 37 goals in 82 league games for us since signing for the club, but he will miss the first couple of months of this season after picking up an injury in our first pre season friendly.

Outgoing: My first sale of this window is of the transfer listed, Tijani Noslin. His game time has become less and less with each season as we have improved the squad and he spent the second half of last season on loan in Belgium, so I was happy to let him go. He joins St Etienne for a fee of £3.7 million.

On a personal level, I am still receiving approaches from some of the biggest clubs in Europe and the latest are the Italian champions.

Followed up quickly by their biggest rivals!

Incoming: I have managed to even out the negative transfer budget already and it left me with a hugely oversized wage budget (I'd transferred nearly £6 million I didn't spend on transfers last year into the wage budget at the end of the season). That meant I could start looking at signings and adjust budgets as necessary. Rasmus Henriksen is a 19 year old Dane, who has come through the ranks at FC Kobenhavn and he had a minimum fee release clause of £3.2 million which I have met to bring the promising youngster to Holland.

Pre-season was unbeaten again this year and included a mini tour of England. We should feel suitably prepared for the new season.

Outgoing: I wasn't planning on selling Jobe Bellingham this Summer, but when Norwich started sniffing around and were prepared to pay more than double what we paid for him (£7.25 million), I decided that I felt we could replace him with a better player so let him return to England.

Our first competitive game of the season would be our first ever appearance in the Johan Cruijff Schaal (basically the Dutch Community Shield) against last year's Eredivisie winners, Ajax.

Considering Ajax had home advantage on their side and were backed by a full house of fans, we actually gave it a decent go against them and although we lost, I'm not too disappointed with this and can take plenty of positives from our performance going into the new season. Especially when I consider that 2 of their 3 goals were absolute bangers from well outside the box that we couldn't really do much about!

The new Eredivisie season is just around the corner and as we take a look at the preview, the bookies have us at the shortest title odds they've ever had us at just 18/1. That does still only have us down for a 4th placed finish though.

We kick off the season with 4 winnable fixtures!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 39
Ajax Away Early In The Season
5th September 2027

Our first game of the season is against Vitesse, a team we put 10 goals past in 2 fixtures last year!

And we didn't muck about on the opening day here either.

Incoming: I had money from the Jobe Bellingham sale and needed a replacement for him. Lucas de los Santos joins us as I activate his minimum fee release clause of £4.3 million and on paper he is better than Bellingham so it looks like a good deal initially. The Uruguayan adds some aggression to our defensive midfield role which is something I feel we've been missing a little in that area.

I expected us to win against FC Emmen, but in the end I think I have to accept a draw as a good result based on the fact we pulled back from 2-0 down!

The commentator said at full time that we were never in doubt of losing this game and I think that's testament to just how dominant we were from start to finish. We didn't have our best day in front of goal, but we were certainly always in command.

This year's Europa League 'league phase' fixtures are released and without a doubt, the highlight fixtures for us are Juventus and Spurs!

Back to domestic action for now though and it was FC Groningen up for us. There were two things to note from this game...first, I made the call to give 18 year old product of our academy, Marcenl van der Plas, his first start up front and he rewarded me with 2 goals!

Second, I mentioned when I signed new DM Lucas de los Santos that he would bring some much needed aggression to the midfield. Well, he got sent off!

But despite going down to 10 men, we still won the game!

And followed that up with another win against Heracles, with a young striker getting on the scoresheet again!

Transfer Deadline Day: There was very nearly a huge influx of cash into the club on deadline day as I had accepted a bid of £22 million for Filippo Ranocchia from Bournemouth. However, the player failed to agree personal terms and instead remains at the club. I'm not disappointed as I'd rather keep the player anyway - it was just an offer that was too good to refuse!

Here's the biggest deals from around Europe over the last few months (over £20 million).

Feyenoord raked in a ridiculous £204 million from sold players this Summer! But have reinvested half of that back into the side. This is what we are up against in the Dutch league!

With the window now closed, that would lead us on to our second encounter of the season already with Ajax. It was a case of the only two unbeaten sides after the opening 5 games playing each other.

At full time, both sides still remain unbeaten! A good result for us as we go toe to toe with the champions.

I'm pleased that we have started the season in good form and it's nice to get the Ajax away fixture out of the way nice and early.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 40
Moving Towards State Of The Art Facilities
4th November 2027

Our first game in the Europa League this year would on paper be the toughest opponent we have ever faced in the competition. Juventus may not be the side they were 6-7 seasons ago, but they're still massive when compared to us. We actually gave a very good account of ourselves and it's gutting to come away with the defeat...the ref adds on 5 minutes of stoppage time at the end of the game and they score on 95:22!!

I almost felt a bit sorry for RKC Waalwijk who suffered the wrath off the back of our unjust Juventus defeat.

After losing our opening game to Juventus, it's so important not to kick off the league phase with back to back defeats and put immediate pressure on ourselves. However, we don't have to worry about that as we cruise past Partizan on matchday 2.

We picked up a decent point away at PSV in the Eredivisie as well, although it was a bitter sweet point after we threw away a 2-0 lead.

We had nearly a month without a game now and I used that time to source a new affiliate club with the board.

During my time with the club, I have encouraged the board to try to build our network across different countries and we now have affiliations in Holland, Germany, Czech Republic, Belgium and Croatia.

We'll also make further improvements to our training facilities as well.

We returned from a near 4 week break with 3 Eredivisie games in a week! I think it's fair to say it was a good week, rounded off by a big win over NAC which saw Steffen Tigges scoring on his return from injury in his first appearance of the season.

We carried our domestic form into Europe as well as we spanked Croatian side, Hajduk Split! This was a walkover from start to finish and was a very, very impressive victory!

Another strong start to this year's competition has us firmly in amongst the top 8 in the league phase after the opening 3 games.

Then came a surprise result as we are beaten by Go Ahead. However, I'm not quite sure how as the stats show we were in complete control of the game for pretty much the entire 90 minutes. They just managed to score on a couple of breakaways and we had a bad day in front of goal. A bad result but I'm putting it down as a fluke.

That defeat saw us relinquish our unbeaten record in the league and top spot to Ajax.

We were much better against Luzern in the Europa League and chalk up another win in this year's competition.