Fortuna Sittard

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 54
Takeover Complete & We Officially Move Home
10th August 2029

Interest in my players is high this Summer and early in the window, I am having to fend off giant bids for the likes of Enoch Mastoras and Spike Brits.

The impending takeover at the football club has finally happened and it's former Director, Fabian Janssen who takes over as Chairman.

And he pretty much expects us to continue in the same vein as we have done over the coming years. Qualifying for European competition has to be the priority from here on out.

This year's released players list is mostly made up of youngsters who haven't progressed to a good enough level. Anwar El Ghazi also leaves now he has reached the ripe old age of 34, but it's worth giving him a mention. He came in as a squad/fringe player just to help us out but actually played a relatively pivotal role for me over the past couple of seasons.

Incoming: As I lose one Dutch player with lots of experience, I sign another. Donny Van de Beek is 32 and could be the new El Ghazi...a player I sign for squad cover but could easily end up playing a big part. He joins on a free transfer after his contract with Brentford came to an end.

It's official, we are in our new 18,375 capacity stadium, giving us an extra 6,000 seats on our previous one. Also, the new stadium has room for expansion to a 36,000+ capacity!

Incoming: My first signing of the Summer (in terms of money actually laid out) is a product of the Barcelona academy. 21 year old Juan Hernandez has played most of his football for Barcelona Atletic rather than Barcelona proper but does have 69 goals and 22 assists in 165 games, so I am hoping he can transfer that form to more competitive football with us in Holland. He only cost us £5.25 million (all up front) which I think could prove to be a bargain!

It would seem that the extra coefficient place that was handed to Holland just meant Ajax would go straight into the league phase, as we have been entered into the Europa League and we will need to get through two qualifiers as well. Our first will be against Turkish opposition.

That Europa League game will be our first competitive game of the season and our preparations went as well as they could have done, winning all of our friendlies and scoring plenty in the process.

The only negative was that new signing Juan Hernandez picked up an injury in the Kobenhavn game which will see him miss the first month or so of the new season!

Incoming Loan: This could be a massive signing for us, even if it is just a season long loan deal. 24 year old Brazilian striker, Deivid Washington, joined Chelsea for nearly £16 million in 2023 from Santos. Since then, he has managed 37 league appearances for them without ever really getting a run in the first team. He looks like a complete striker to me and I am delighted to bring him here and he could genuinely score bundles in Holland I reckon - I hope I'm right! We are having to pay £70% of his £71k per week wage along with a £200k per month loan fee but he should prove worth it!

Washington joined the club with a minor injury so couldn't go into the matchday squad for the away leg with Adana Demirspor in the Europa League qualifier. I think it's fair to say we got by OK without him!

We will turn our attention to the start of the new Eredivisie season next and the bookies have shortened our odds on winning the title once again, although we are still predicted to finish behind Ajax and Feyenoord. Enoch Mastoras joins Cristian Aguero in the media dream 11 this season!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 55
Perfect Start
5th September 2029

Our first game of the new Eredivisie season would be against Heerenveen. We banged in 12 goals against them across the two league fixtures last year!!

And this year we kick off the season by hammering 9 past them in a single game! What a welcome this was to our fans at our new stadium!

What a performance it was from Rasmus Henriksen! This kid is just incredible!

With our passage to the next round of the Europa League qualifiers already secured, I took the opportunity to rotate the squad pretty heavily, with two 17 year olds and a 15 year old from the youth team playing in the game. Despite that, we still won the 2nd leg and increased our aggregate score.

Back in the Eredivisie, we hammered FC Utrecht as we continue our free goalscoring form at the start of the season. We haven't even had a chance to play new striker, Washington, yet!

In the Europa League, Rapid Wien are the team that now stood between us and the league phase of the competition. With the first leg being at home, we needed to ensure we had a healthy lead to take to Austria with us and we will take a 3 goal cushion into the 2nd game. Great to see Abdallah Sima on the scoresheet in his first appearances back from injury and there was also a debut goal for Deivid Washington.

Sima was again on the scoresheet against Go Ahead Eagles and he seems to have picked up where he left off last season!

Outgoing: Mauricio Diaz hasn't really developed as well as I hoped he would and he has become frustrated at being 4th/5th choice centre back at the club. He asked for a move away and I was happy to oblige, so he joins Standard Liege for £2.9 million. It's a small profit of £900k on what I paid for him.

Out in Austria, we beat Rapid Wien with a solid performance from Rasmus Henriksen at the forefront of a decent team display. We will therefore be playing in the league phase of the competition this year.

Five years ago, I might have looked at our Europa League fixture list for the league phase and felt we might struggle. However, nowadays this is a fixture list I'll be looking to win at least 6 of the 8 games.

Winning in Austria ensured that we set a new record at the club for consecutive wins in all competitions.

And we extended that to 12 with a win over Cambuur in the Eredivisie, even though we missed two penalties in the process.

Outgoing: Transfer deadline day saw one centre back leave and one join. The one that left was Kaelan Casey who joins Blackburn for £1.8 million. He has only played 16 times for me in 3 years and most of them were as a sub rather than a starter and that had frustrated him so it was the right thing to do to let him get on with his career somewhere else.

Incoming Loan: We had to replace Casey and we have done so with another player looking to rebuild their career. Luka Vuskovic moved to Spurs back in 2025 for £11.75 million but has only played 16 times for them since and needs some first team football to show his parent club what he can do. He will get that chance with us this season as he will spend a year on loan here.

We extended our 100% start to the season against FC Volendam, getting at least a little bit of revenge for them knocking us out of the cup last year.

So it's been the perfect start to season 6! Won every game, scored a hatfull of goals and hardly conceded any! Hopefully we can keep this up!

 

[dporter8999]

Checked the Champions League place, it is for the season after! Great performances so far, the goalscoring is immense!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 56
Another Record Broken
3rd November 2029

Over the years, Willem II have become a bit of a pain in the **** for us, so I really don't look forward to playing them. However, this was the most dominant we have been over them for a while and it's a good win away from home.

We kick off the league phase of the Europa League with a nice win against Brondby. I don't want to show any level of complacency towards my players, but I really think the league phase of this competition should be a doddle for us now with our current squad.

There's no doubt we are flying on all fronts at the moment and that was backed up with another comfortable win in the Eredivisie. It was left back, Vasilis Zagaritis who shone in this one as he bagged 3 assists.

We are already selling out our new stadium, so I approached the board to invest in an expansion, to which they agreed. Come the end of the season, we will have a capacity of nearly 22,000.

Our first home game in the Europa League (proper) this year resulted in a comfortable win over Shakhtar. It never really looked in doubt from the off to be fair.

N.E.C have been away from the top tier for a few years and they're return hasn't been pretty so far as they sit bottom of the table. A win was expected and a win was delivered by my players.

And another 3 points chalked up against Excelsior, with braces for both Monaghan and Sima.

PEC Zwolle beat us towards the back end of last season and so the message to my players before kick off was simple...go out there and get your revenge. And they did exactly that as we record an easy victory. Rasmus Henriksen turned in a top performance with 2 goals and an assist on his way to a man of the match award.

It's not very often that a player gets man of the match and gets sent off in the same game, but that's what happened against Heracles for Juan Hernandez. He opened the scoring on 14 minutes, before going on to assist our other two goals. Then a moment of madness saw him throw out a two footed tackle late on to see a straight red card.

We're now unbeaten in 23 games and that's another club record broken!

We haven't suffered a really long term injury for a few seasons so the medical staff at the club have clearly been doing a good job in looking after my players. However, we have been rocked with our first one in a while as we lose Gaston Avila for up to 5 months.

Avila is another player that has proven to be a bargain buy for me. Signing for just £3.1 million from Ajax back in 2026, he has become an important part of the defensive back line and is now valued at over £23 million. He will be missed whilst out.

Our first game without Avila resulted in a clean sheet, but that was largely down to Spike Brits who made an amazing penalty save to keep the score 0-0. A good point out in Lyon.

After the opening 3 games of the Europa League, we are firmly placed in the top 8 where we want to be.

We went behind against AZ back in the Eredivisie and it looked like our 100% start to the league campaign might be in jeapordy. However, a late rally and a 92nd minute strike from Daan Rots ensured we turned the game on it's head and pick up another win.

Our first defeat of the season came at the hands of Feyenoord. It was a closely contested game, but with home advantage on their side, they just about edged it.

Thanks to the fact we won every one of our first 12 games, we are still top of the Eredivise. But with Feyenoord remaining unbeaten, they are just 3 points behind us. Meanwhile, Ajax have had a poor start to their season (by their standards) and have lost twice already and are already 9 points off us!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 57
Two More Major Injuries!!
20th December 2029

****!! We have another key player now out for 4 months. Bob Monaghan has embraced his role as first choice striker this season and has 10 goals in 15 appearances, but will now miss a sizeable proportion of the season after breaking his leg in training! Absolutely gutted!

Temporary life without Monaghan started well enough with no trouble putting the ball in the back of the net, hammering 6 past Qarabag in Europe.

ADO Den Haag are a team we haven't played a competitive fixture with throughout my career until now. And they won't relish the next one after we thrashed them.

I can't believe it...we have another long term injury as Juan Hernandez is now out for 2 months! What the **** is going on!

With multiple injuries, we still managed to grind out a determined result against Sparta Rotterdam.

And the same again in Europe against Spurs, once again beating the side we overcame in the final 2 years ago to lift the Europa League trophy.

16 year old Edwin Baffour was on the bench for the game due to the injuries in the squad. I gave him the last 15 minutes to make his debut and the youngster scored a goal he will never forget!

And it was the youngster who came off the bench to score the winner against PSV! What a few days it has been for Baffour and I had to start to wonder if we had a star in the making.

It was one of my more established youngsters in Marcel Van der Plas who excelled against Ajax though, scoring 4 times on his way to a 10.0 match rating! Massive result away from home against one of our title rivals.

With them now 12 points off the pace, does that put Ajax out of the title race at the half way stage of the season??

As for our own title challenge, we kept up the charge with a comfortable victory over FC Utrecht.

We carried that good form into Europe as well, picking up a big win out in Portugal.

We're top of the league phase of the Europa League with 2 games to go and it's fair to say we are currently finding the competition all too easy so far this season. It would be great to win this one again and that's what I have my eyes set on!

Heerenveen were up next in the Eredivisie...a team we have scored 21 times against in just our last 3 meetings!!

We beat them again, although by a much tighter scoreline. Sometimes it's nice to get a solid 1-0 with a strong defensive performance.

Feyenoord may remain unbeaten in the league this season, but it is us that tops the table and sit 5 points clear after 19 games. Right now it looks like a 2 horse race this season, although a couple of defeats for either of us could easily see Ajax close the gap.

Our final game of 2029 saw us through to the next round of the Dutch Cup as we beat Telstar by a ridiculous scoreline. We went out last year in the 2nd round to lower league opposition and the lads seemed determined not to repeat that this year!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 58
Another Treble On The Cards?
24th February 2030

A couple of seasons ago, Go Ahead Eagles were looking very much like our bogey team. However, this was our 4th win in a row over them and so maybe we have now put that behind us. And this one was an excellent performance where we limited our opponents to just a single shot on goal.

We're comfortably through to the next round of the TOTO KNVB Beker after winning at Willem II. It was a game that saw Gustavo Hormazabal score his first goal for the club.

Hormazabal has been on loan from the club we bought him from, ever since we signed him, but returned this month and this was only his 2nd appearance for the first team since coming back.

Outgoing: Lucas de los Santos joined the club 3 years ago for a small fee of just £4.3 million and has played 54 league games for the club. However, it is time for him to leave as Damac were willing to pay £18.25 million to sign him and that's profit I just can't turn down. Especially as I have a couple of decent prospects coming through the youth system that play in his position.

One of them prospects is 19 year old Rodney van der Laan who gets a promotion to the senior squad as de los Santos's replacement.

Rodney came off the bench to make his senior debut for the club as we beat Rosenborg in the Europa League. He gave a decent account of himself in the 29 minutes he played.

It was a win that ensures we make the last 16 of the competition with a game in the league phase to spare.

Incoming: I've forked out £3.4 million (all up front) of the transfer budget to bring in 19 year old full back, Armin Hasanbegovic. The young Italian/Bosnian will likely improve over the coming years and could develop into a first team regular, but right now he'll be used as a rotation option.

He made his debut from the bench in a 4-0 win over Cambuur. That's our 20th win from 21 league games this season!

Incoming: Transfer deadline day saw an exciting young Brazilian join the club and we have beaten both Porto and AC Milan to his signature. Rodiney is only 19 and already good enough to have an impact on our first 11, so I'm really exciting to watch him develop into hopefully a world class player over the next few seasons! We signed him from Gremio for £10.75 million, meeting his minimum fee release clause.

Unfortunately, he couldn't play against Wolfsburg in the final game of the league section of the Europa League, due to the fact he isn't registered. It was a game that meant very little to both sides as we have both qualified for the last 16 already. Despite that, both sides still looked like they wanted the win and it was us who sealed it with a couple of late goals.

The win ensures we finish top of the league phase of the competition.

The transfer window is now shut and the biggest deal of the January window was Evan Ferguson's move from Brighton to Dortmund.

Our own superstar signing, Rodiney, got the chance to make his debut for the club in the quarter final of the Dutch Cup against PSV, and it was his goal that opened the scoring on our way to a win that secures our place in the last 4.

The youngster didn't get his first Eredivisie goal, even though we did put 6 past FC Volendam on our way to another big league win. Rasmus Henriksen earned himself a 10.0 match rating as he continues to impress.

Our next two league games saw us take on the two sides that prop up the Eredivisie table, so I fully expected two more relatively easy wins!

And my lads duly delivered!

So with 10 games of the season remaining, we have a 10 point lead over our nearest pursuers, Feyenoord. Ajax are well back, 18 points behind in 3rd and won't be winning the league this year! It's very much ours to throw away at this point and with us in the semi final of the cup and last 16 of the Europa League, we have our eyes on a potential treble for the 2nd time in 3 years.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 59
Is Rodiney My Best Ever Signing?
7th April 2030

The Europa League Last 16 draw could have given us an easier tie to be honest and we'll have to be at our best to beat Bayer Leverkusen.

Before that, we play back to back games against N.E.C in both the Dutch Cup and Eredivisie.

First, we secured our place in the final of the cup and then followed it up with a dominant performance in the Eredivisie, but were surprisingly beaten. I think it was just one of those days if I'm honest - they're keeper had the game of his life, we hit the post, missed an open goal and had two goals ruled out for offside.

Four years ago was the last time we played Bayer Leverkusen and that was again in the last 16 of the Europa League. A big win out in Germany on that occasion helped us on our way to knocking them out of the competition that year.

And we win in Germany again, bringing a 2 goal lead back with us for the second leg.

Before that return leg, we had a league game against Excelsior to play and I needed to see a reaction following our surprise defeat to N.E.C. We bounced back to immediately get our title challenge back on track!

We completed the job against Leverkusen to make the quarter finals of the Europa League as well. They won't want to see us in European competition again any time soon.

Next up it's the team we beat in the final 2 years ago!

Meanwhile, back in domestic competition we took another step closer to the Eredivisie title with a win over Zwolle.

It's that time of year again for the youth intake, but this year's is nothing to get excited about at all.

Our next league game will pit us against Heracles...a side I have a 100% win record against, scoring 50 goals in the process!!

And we recorded our biggest win yet over them this time round.

The top 50 wonderkids in world football are announced and it's promising for Dutch football to see that there are 3 players in the top 10 based in Holland.

And promising for us as well as 3 of our own players make the top 50, including Rodney van der Laan who is a product of our own academy!

Back on the field, it was another 3 points away at AZ. We were far from our best here, but still managed to grind out a result and edge ever closer to the Eredivisie trophy for the 2nd time.

What a signing Rodiney is turning out to be. He has 10 goals in his opening 11 appearances for the club!

His goals are helping fire us towards the title as we lead Feyenoord by 7 points, with just 5 games remaining. Three more wins secures it for us, but we do have to play both Feyenoord and Ajax in our last few matches.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 60
Tottenham, Feyenoord, Tottenham, Feyenoord
20th May 2030

Our next four games are going to see us play both Feyenoord and Tottenham twice each, in alternate fixtures, across three different competitions.

We started that run off in the worst fashion. Despite being the better side, we were beaten at home by Spurs in the first leg of our Europa League tie and now have it all to do in England.

The next game is absolutely massive. There's only Feyenoord and us in the title race now and of the two sides, we definitely have the tougher run in. So beating them in our next match would be huge and put one hand on the trophy!

What I didn't expect was for us to absolutely hammer them! Massive, massive result!

Unfortunately, we couldn't take the momentum of that result into the 2nd leg of our Europa League clash with Spurs. It's really disappointing to lose this tie as we were the better side in both legs, creating more and better chances in both games, but just couldn't find the back of the net. Gutted!

We needed to quickly put the disappointment behind us, as we had an opportunity to win the Dutch Cup for the third time under my management. It would be a final that pits the best two teams in the country (at present) against each other. Here's how the sides lined up.

At half time, we had been the slightly better of the two sides, but the score remained level. However, Rodiney had lost his head on the big occasion and a two footed tackle had him seeing red on 38 minutes, so we would be up against it with 10 men in the second half.

It proved too much of an ask and late in the game, Feyenoord made their extra man count and beat us to the cup! Just like that, we are out of two competitions and now have to turn our complete attention to at least winning the Eredivisie or the season will have ended up being a disaster!

We did, at least, win the league in our very next game against ADO Den Haag. It's a very good ending to a disappointing couple of weeks.

For the 2nd time under my management and only the 2nd time in the club's history, we are champions of Holland.

With the title win, I officially enter the Dutch hall of fame too.

And it also sees me move from a club favourite to a club icon!

Our last 3 games of the season were just a formality but we did still manage to win two of them. Not the ideal ending finishing with a defeat to Ajax, but certainly not complaining after a campaign that saw us win 31 of 34 games!!

With the season wrapping up, the board announce the budgets for next year. Not quite sure where we can improve at the moment so we will see what the Summer brings.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Disappointing end to the cup and Europe League but at least you have the league title and will have Champions League football to look forward to

Yea the league was the one I wanted this year, so was pleased to get our title back. Would have been nice to win a cup as well, but my main target was achieved so has to be seen as a good season. Another year of Champions League money next season will be massive for the continued development of the club too.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

END OF SEASON 2029/30 REVIEW

Competition Winners

A record breaking Eredivisie campaign saw us win the total whilst recording the most amount of league wins and the most amount of points in a single season ever!

We came as close as you can come to a domestic double, but defeat in the final of the Dutch Cup robbed us of it.

Again a decent showing in European competition but losing that quarter final to Spurs still hurts as we were definitely the better side over both legs.

The New Arrivals

Best 11

Looking at the overall best 11 since my time here, I now have four players in the 200+ games played club!

Club Awards

League Awards
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The following of the football club has again seen a sharp increase in social media followers of more than 1.4 million!! We also have a season ticket waiting list with more people on it than our current stadium even holds!

As far as the board are concerned, we are established as one of the best clubs in the country now and Champions League qualification is the bare minimum expectation moving forward.

The Commercials

The Finances

Earlier in the season, I asked the board to increase the stadium capacity to which their initial response was to increase by about 4,000. However, those plans were put on hold and we will now get over 7,000 new seats instead!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 61
First £50 million + Sale
2nd September 2030

Outgoing: My first sale of the Summer is one of the ageing players in the squad. Gijs Smal signed for £3.7 million 4 seasons ago and has been a key figure in the squad with major contribution to our two title winning seasons. He hit double figure assists for three straight seasons but was outshone by Vasilis Zagaritis last year and he is soon to turn 33 years old, so I was happy to move him on. He joins Lorient for £3.5 million.

Outgoing: Then there was a sale I hadn't planned on. However, when Crystal Palace offered us £51 million for Enoch Mastoras, it was just an amount of money I couldn't refuse! The right back has been with us for 6 seasons from a teenager when he signed from AZ for just £3.6 million. He's been my first choice in that position and has been an ultra consistent performer, winning the young player of the year award at the club twice. Sorry to see him go, but we did get a massive amount of money for him!

Incoming: The replacement for Mastoras is 26 year old Italian, Filippo Missori, who signs from Empoli for £8.5 million (all up front). To get a player that looks as rounded as him for just a fraction of the money we brought in for Mastoras is a great deal in my book!

Our pre season campaign saw us win every game, scoring a tonne of goals on a Portuguese tour against smaller sides in the country. We rounded things off with a good win against Palace and I feel suitably prepared going into our clash with Feyenoord in the Johan Cruijff Schaal.

Incoming: The morning of the game, we are able to announce a new signing and I'm delighted to add another Dutch player to the ranks after losing Mastoras and Smal this Summer. Ray van den Berg comes in from Middlesbrough for a fee of £23 million (£21.5 million up front) and boosts our defensive options. Great to add such a versatile player who can cover anywhere across the back line, although I'll primarily look to utilize the 6ft 4" defender at centre back.

It took a penalty shootout to separate the two best sides in the country (based on last season) and it was a shootout we came out on top of, so we lift the Johan Cruijff Schaal for the second time.

We turn our attentions to the start of the Eredivisie season and our first two games will be against two of the only three sides to beat us in the league last season, so not necessarily the easiest start.

Despite being the current champions, we are not favourites to retain it this season, but instead Ajax are hot favourites which surprises me with how poor they were last year. We only have Cristian Aguero retaining his place in the media dream 11.

We did start the campaign with a win. A strong performance which saw us have 23 shots at goal so it was never in doubt and a comfortable 2-0 victory to kick things off.

Our unbeaten start to the season lasted just 1 game this season though as we were beaten by Ajax in our 2nd match. A really poor and slow start from us allowed them two score twice in the opening 8 minutes, through new £79 million signing Nicolas Jackson (from Chelsea). We were the better side after that, but not good enough to get back on level terms.

We did get right back to winning ways against Heracles, although we still struggled to put the ball in the back of the net, scoring only 2 of our 22 chances.

With us, Ajax and Feyenoord all dropping points in the opening games, it was AZ that led the way with 3 wins from 3 in the early stages.

Our next game was against the early leaders and going into the last 12 minutes of the match, there had only been 1 goal as our opponents led us. Then things went a little crazy and four goals were shared by the two sides, with us coming out on top through Bob Monaghan's 86th minute winner!

And that result tightened things right up at the top of the table in these early stages, with just a single point separating 1st to 6th.

Meanwhile, the Champions League fixtures are announced and we have some really tough games ahead of us in the league phase of the competition.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 62
Season Officially Kickstarted
17th October 2030

The Summer transfer window again comes to a close and here are the biggest deals (over £20 million) across Europe from the last few months.

So far this season, I didn't think we'd looked hugely impressive and when we went 1-0 down to NAC within the opening 2 minutes I have to admit I was concerned for a second. However, this match actually turned out to be our best performance of the season so far as we went on to put 6 past them and record a comfortable win in the end.

Fair play to NAC though as they bounce back immediately to beat one of our title rivals in their next game!

We took full advantage of Feyenoord's slip up by beating Go Ahead Eagles to leapfrog them in the table.

Abdallah Sima has been one of my favourite players of my career so far with Sittard. The man I signed from Brighton for just £1.7 million back in 2025 has been one of my most consistent players year on year and now has 49 league goals in 102 appearances for us from the right wing!

Our first Champions League game of the season was one of our more winnable fixtures, so I felt it was a must win game if we are to have any hopes of progressing past the league phase of the competition. So I was pleased to see my lads go out there and make light work of Galatasaray.

The game against Cambuur came just 4 days later, so I made 8 changes to the starting lineup. Despite the changes, we still turned in a solid performance to chalk up another 3 points.

Half the reason I rotated so heavily is becase we had a massive Champions League clash against Man City just 3 days afterwards. It was City who knocked us out of the competition 2 years ago after two tightly contested games in the knockout playoff round.

Again, we keep things tight on the scoreline, despite being dominated for large periods of the game. A very good point away from home!

Another strong defensive performance back in the Eredivise was the foundation of another win.

With all of our main rivals dropping points over the same weekend, we've managed to open up a nice little 4 point lead at the top.

The stadium work has now been completed and we have expanded our capacity to over 25,000 which is double what we had to offer when I took over the club!

It also means we now have the 5th biggest stadium in the country.

Our next game would be away though, at Feyenoord, and we earned a decent draw at their place. We seemed well in control of this one for about an hour, limiting them to just 1 shot and then they upped their game in the last half hour to come back at us and in the end we were holding on a little for the point.

We marked our first game in our new improved stadium with a comfortable victory over Heerenveen, in front of a club record attendance of 25,031 fans!

After 10 games, we sit top of the table with a 5 point lead over four clubs all sitting on 20 points behind us.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 63
Opening Up A Decent Lead
11th December 2030

We were far from our best against PEC Zwolle, but when you create 27 chances in a single game, you probably don't need to be as law of averages says you'll score at least a couple to get you the win, which is exactly what happened here.

Then we headed off to Italy for a really tough game against Napoli. Just as we did against Man City, we put up a brave effort but this time we weren't able to take anything from the game. We are, however, proving that we can mix it with some of the better teams in Europe now.

Our next Champions League game will pit us against Italian opposition again in the form of Monza, but before that we had two more Eredivisie to play. Playing against two sides in the bottom half of the table, 6 points was duly delivered.
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It was the perfect platform to lead us into a Champions League game that I felt we could definitely win. And I wasn't wrong as we cruise past Monza with relative ease. Rodiney's goal here took him into double figures for the season and the young Brazilian is continuing to prove he can be the main man up top for us.

On ten occasions last season, we scored 6 or more goals in a game which is quite incredible really! Against ADO Den Haag, we scored 6 for the third time this season too and we are becoming well versed in handing out a battering to lesser sides.

We probably could have had another 6 against Volendam after creating 30 chances against them. However, on this occasion just the two will do.

Back in the Champions League, we gave ourselves another boost to our chances of qualifying for the next round with a win out in Austria.

But the win came at a cost as I lose one of my biggest attacking threats for at least the next 2 months!

However, the absence of Sima didn't seem to effect us against PSV as we beat them yet again! Our record against them is nothing short of incredible!

That's now 16 games since I took over as Fortuna Sittard boss that PSV have failed to beat us!

FC Utrecht were next to fall to defeat against us. Things were a little nervey as we led 1-0 for a long time, but once we got the 2nd goal, the result was never really in any doubt.

Massive game up next against Ajax, who have beaten us in our last two meetings, including being the only team to beat us so far this season. It's 1st vs 2nd in the table!

It was a game we should have won! We were on top for 90 minutes and created so many chances. However, squandering most of them and only putting the ball in the back of the Ajax net once saw us punished by our opponents as they ****** a lucky point right at the death.

Still, that point does keep us 7 points ahead of both Ajax and Feyenoord as we have passed the half way stage of the season. We're in a nice position right now, especially with both Ajax fixtures played and out the way.

In the Champions League, we did grab a big win out in France, with Bob Monaghan coming off the bench to bag a brace on our way to 3 points.

It's a win that keeps us firmly in the top 8 with 2 games to play. Our final two matches will be against Dortmund and Inter so we still have plenty of work to do if we want auto qualification into the last 16!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 64
Progress On All Fronts
2nd February 2031

Our final Eredivisie game before the Winter break was against 17th placed N.E.C and they weren't expected to pose us much of a problem...and they didn't!

Our very last game of 2030 was in the Dutch Cup. It's Ajax for us in the Second Round of the KNVB Beker this season and although it isn't ideal to be drawing them so early in the competition, it is at least a massive opportunity for both clubs to get rid of one of our main rivals. So far in the cup, we've met twice before and it's 1-1.

Just as we did in the league game last month, we dominated the game and created multiple chances. Just as we did before, we took a 1-0 lead! But not as before, we didn't concede this time and hold on for a massive result to knock Ajax out of the competition!

Heracles were up next for us in the Eredivisie...a team we have won 15 straight matches against!

Make that 16 wins in a row!

It was a quick return to the Dutch Cup and we cruise past lower league Top OSS. The game was over inside 27 minutes with us already 5-0 up and I found myself subbing key players after just half an hour to rest them.

After us knocking Ajax out, Feyenoord have now been dumped out by NAC at an early stage. With our two biggest rivals out of the competition already, we have to be targeting the trophy this season now!

Being able to rest key players proved vital as we took on Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League and a solid defensive performance ensured that Rodiney's 19th minute strike was enough for a massive win!

Our final game of the league phase will be against Inter Milan in 8 days time and a draw will be enough for us to secure a top 8 finish and a place in the last 16.

Incoming: The January window has been very quiet for us so far, but I was approached by the agent for Brazilian forward, Kaio Jorge, to see if we would be interested in signing him. He has been without a club since being released by ATM at the end of his contract and I was more than happy to snap up the ex Juventus player on a free transfer.

Before the showdown with Inter Milan, we had a league game with AZ to play and I put new striker, Kaio Jorge, into the starting lineup for this one. The new man made his contribution as he got the assist for our equalizer as we come from behind to win.

Our Champions League encounter with Inter looked like it was getting off to the perfect start when we were awarded a penalty as early as the 5th minute. However, Miguel Reisinho missed the spot kick and that set the tone for one of our worst performances of the season as we are well beaten at home. The only positive I can really take it seeing Kaio Jorge come off the bench to get his first goal for the club.

Despite the defeat, we do still finish 6th in the league phase and secure safe passage through to the last 16. It's a fantastic achievement to go through and avoid having to play in the knockout playoff where we were eliminated from the competition on our only other appearance in it.

Incoming: On transfer deadline day, I forked out £10 million (all up front) to sign former Spanish U21 International centre back, Andres Cuenca. He comes in from Bodo/Glimt and at just 23 years of age, he should spend his prime years at the club.

Outgoing: Bob Monaghan leaves the club before the Dutch window closes. He has only featured in 23 league games over the past 2 seasons, scoring 12 times, but with the recent arrival of Kaio Jorge and some decent striker prospects coming through the youth I just didn't see much of a future for the Scot at the club. He returns to the UK where he'll play for Derby County after they paid us £18.5 million to sign him. It's a good return on a player I only paid £4.8 million to sign.

Back to the action on the pitch and we resumed winning ways against NAC, despite not being at our best.

With 12 games of the season remaining, we are 9 points clear at the top. Surely it's ours to lose from here!

 

[ricardo12]

Haven't played FM in ages. Just started playing 24 recently and enjoying reading career stories.
And I must say I love your content!

Keep up the good work.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Haven't played FM in ages. Just started playing 24 recently and enjoying reading career stories.
And I must say I love your content!

Keep up the good work.

Thanks mate, I really appreciate this!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 65
The Worst Possible Champions League Draw
14th March 2031

Not an ideal start to this update as we lose new striker Kaio Jorge to injury for up to 6 weeks!

Even without him, we comfortably progress to the semi final of the Dutch Cup with 4 goal victory over FC Emmen.

It looks very much set up for a final between us and AZ and I have to be honest that I'll be bitterly disappointed if we don't lift the trophy this year from here.

Juan Hernandez was in sensational form as he scored a brace in a man of the match performance as we beat Go Ahead pretty easily in the Eredivisie.

The Spaniard is having a decent season and now has 11 goals and 6 assists in 28 appearances in all competitions. He's proving to be an absolute bargain at just £5 million from Barcelona.

He's now attracting interest from Spanish clubs, but to prize him away, he'll cost them at least £40 million + now!

Another 3 points were chalked up against Cambuur, even though our performance was nowhere near as dominant as it has been of late. But we are defending well and this was our third clean sheet in a row.

And it's another clean sheet as we cruise through to the final of the KNVB Beker! We are just 1 win away from winning our 3rd Dutch Cup under my management.

It was time for the Champions League last 16 draw and from the pool of unseeded teams, it's fair to say I was hoping for a draw against Club Brugge. Failing that, Real Sociedad and Lyon would be preferable!

But luck wasn't on our side in the draw and we have one of the toughest ties we could possibly have ahead of us now!

PSG are the current holders and have won the competition twice in the last five years! It really doesn't get any tougher for us!

Before heading out to Paris for the 1st leg, we would appreciate a game against much easier opposition in the Eredivisie.

We were dominated by PSG in all honesty. However, we did at least manage to restrict the score to 2-0 and give ourselves a slim chance of turning it around in the 2nd leg...although we'll have to play much better than we did here to do so!

Of all the league games to have sandwiched between the two legs, Feyenoord were not ideal opponents as I wouldn't have any opportunity to rest my best players, or it would at least be a big risk to do so.

We have a healthy lead in the league so I decided it was a risk worth taking and we still managed to get the win so it paid off! A massive result in the title race!

It was a result that saw us take a massive leap towards the league title and probably dumps Feyenoord out of the race. With just 8 games to go, Ajax are our main threat, but they still remain 9 points back and we have already played them twice, so they will be relying on us losing 3 games whilst they win all of their remaining!

All of our efforts will now go into a potential domestic double as we are out of the Champions League. It was a brave effort from my lads in the 2nd leg against PSG and if Filippo Ranocchia hadn't two footed Mbappe and subsequently seen red just before half time, we might just have turned this game around ya know!

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 66
Looking To Finish Strong
19th May 2031

PSV did us a massive favour by beating Ajax before we took on Heerenveen. If we win our game in hand, we could now go 12 points clear at the top!

And we did just that! Great performance away from home against the side sitting 4th in the table.

And we followed it up with another win against Zwolle. Good to see two products of our youth academy on the scoresheet!

This year's youth intake is pretty average, although there is one player that excites me for the future.

Ton van der Plas is only 15 years old and has some impressive states for an attacking midfielder. If he develops well, he could be a future first teamer for us.

He is tipped as potentially being the next Xavi Simons. Could be worse than being compared to a Real Madrid regular.

Our next game would be a personal milestone for me as it would be my 400th as manager of Fortuna Sittard.

And we marked the occasion with a big win over our fiercest rivals.

Excelsior did well to get a couple of goals against us on the break, but they were no real match for us as we put 5 past them! It brings us to within a single win from retaining our Eredivisie title.

In the space of the next week, we could complete a domestic double as we face AZ in the Dutch Cup final and then if we can beat ADO Den Haag then the league title will be ours too.

Part 1 is complete in dominant fashion as AZ were barely even able to muster up a chance against us! We are Dutch Cup winners for the 3rd time under my leadership!

Part 2 was completed seven days later in emphatic fashion! We are officially Eredivisie champions again and double winners too!

We finished the season well, remaining unbeaten in our final three games despite already having the title sewn up.

So it's comfortable in the end with a 10 point gap at the top and Feyenoord will be bitterly disappointed with their lack of title challenge this season, being a massive 21 points off the pace!

With the season coming to a close, the board release the budgets for next season, but I do have a couple of deals already sorted for when the window opens (which were completed in April out of the remainder of this season's budget) but we will get to them later.

 

[FM_TNSSO]

END OF SEASON 2030/31 REVIEW

Competition Winners

The Eredivisie campaign for us was near perfect this year, winning 30 of our 34 games and losing just once on our way to the title.

Eredivisie Season Stats

When Ajax (knocked out by us) and Feyenoord were both out of the Dutch Cup early on, we targeted the trophy and went on to win it to complete the domestic double.

We gave a good account of ourselves in the Champions League this season, competing with some of the best sides in Europe in individual games. PSG was not an ideal draw for the last 16 and proved too strong for us.

Overall Squad Stats

The New Arrivals

The Best 11

Club Awards

League Awards
​

Another great season ensured our popularity keeps on growing, with over 1.3 million new followers gained on social media this year. Our season ticket waiting list is also nearly 40,000 strong now too!

Which is going to be helped by our stadium gaining another 10,000 seats!

And the training facilities are getting a new upgrade to keep them as state of the art too.

As far as the board are concerned now, anything less than winning the Eredivisie will now be seen as failure in the coming seasons.

We continue to develop relationships with clubs around the world to enhance our global reputation and the latest affiliation is in China.

The Commercials

The Finances

​

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Chapter 67
An Elite Signing...On A Free!
11th August 2031

We had three senior players leave the club this Summer at the end of their contracts. All three have played important roles for me, but are now only fringe player quality or coming toward the latter end of their careers, but all three have done enough for us to be worthy of a mention and a look back over their Fortuna careers.

Outgoing: My first sale of the Summer is that of centre back, Will Fish. He has played 140 league games for me, so it's fair to say he will be remembered by myself and the fans, but again we have better players now and Getafe were willing to pay £17.5 million for him, which I personally thought was over the odds so was happy to take it.

Incoming: There is a direct replacement for Fish joining the club anyway. Mads Bech Sorensen joins us on a free transfer after his contract with Atletico comes to an end. I pre-arranged this deal back in January and am happy to bring such a high class player to the club who will add some solid experience to the back line.

Incoming: Now it's time to announce the two deals I completed back in April as well, with the window opening they can finally join us. First of all is 19 year old Uruguayan, Ignacio Fernandez who comes in from Penarol for £3.6 million (all up front). It's a bargain deal for a player who is worth much more on his first day here and could develop further into a very, very good attacking player.

Incoming: The better of the two 19 year old signings though is Ukrainian wonderkid, Vladimir Proshkin and this kid excites me. I met his minimum fee release clause of £13.25 million to sign him from Shakhtar and he was being pursued by other big European sides, so it's definitely a coup to get him! He's got great pace and acceleration, is a top finisher, great crosser and a brilliant dribbler of the ball. He's going to bring some serious flair to the attacking unit.

Outgoing & Incoming: There was a change in the backup goalkeeper department this Summer too as Owen Goodman leaves for Dortmund after agreeing a pre contract deal to join them on a free. I replaced him with 33 year old Dutch keeper Maarten Paes who joins from Rennes for £3 million.

Outgoing: Mehdi Bendaoud is a product of our youth academy but doesn't look all that to me, so when Napoli were prepared to pay £8.75 million to sign him, I was happy to let him go.

Outgoing: It was the same story for Marits Keizer who joins Kaiserslautern for £8 million.

Incoming: When an opportunity to sign an elite player comes along for a club like us, it doesn't matter how old they are, you just kind of have to take it. And that's exactly what we've done in signing 33 year old Christopher Nkunku on a free transfer after his release from Chelsea.

Our pre season campaign this year has been good and included a successful tour of Switzerland which was capped off by an 8-0 win over St Gallen. But the most impressive victory of our friendly run was the last one over RB Leipzig.

After winning the domestic double last season, we would contest the Johan Cruijff Schaal against league runners up, Ajax. It was a game we dominated for the entirity of the game, but took us right up until the final 30 seconds of the match to eventually find the back of the net. Although we made hard work of it, we do kick our season off with a win and a trophy again.

As we look ahead to the start of the Eredivisie season, it is Ajax that are the favourites for the title, but we are a very close second now with odds of just 2/1. When I took over at the club we were a mid table side at best, with title odds of 150/1 so we have made incredible progress. We now have 7 players in the media dream 11 too, so it's clearly the best squad I've ever had at the club as I entre my 9th season in charge.

We started the campaign with a display that backed up our position as one of the title favourites, by hammering newly promoted FC Eindhoven. Christopher Nkunku with a man of the match performance on his debut!