Gibraltar: Taking a Pub Team To The Top With Bruno’s Magpies

[Hampus Silverholt]

Despite finishing below us in the League Phase table, Lazio were big favourites for the knockout round playoff match in the Champions League.

Our starting XI for the first leg cost a combined £4.5m. Lewis Gibson was playing in League One last season and Tom Bayliss was at that level two years ago. Peart-Harris, Leonard, Ramsey and Jelert were all released by Premier League clubs for not being good enough yet here they all were in the Champions League knockouts.

And they did us proud in the first leg at the Stadio Olimpico, coming from behind to win 2-1 in what was an even game.

I was still nervy ahead of the second leg, but we did the business again. It actually ended up being quite comfortable with a 4-1 win seeing us win 6-2 on aggregate!

So for the second season in a row we are into the last 16 of the Champions League. We faced Bayern Munich last season and this time around Thomas Tuchel’s Liverpool await us.

We actually played them 3 seasons ago in our first ever season in the Champions League proper and lost 8-0. Looking back at our team I have no idea how we even managed to get to the League Phase and only Jarrel Quansah remains at the club.

This Liverpool side are 4th in the Premier League, but have been dominant in Europe recently and have won 3 of the last 4 Champions Leagues!

It could not be going better in Europe, but domestically we’ve had a bit of a blip. After drawing against them earlier in the season, we somehow lost against Lincoln Red Imps, which was our first loss in the Gibraltar league in over 2 years!

So remarkably we are now in 2nd place in the league despite having a +65 goal difference from 13 matches.

We do play Lincoln Red Imps one more time, but if we don’t win that game we could seriously make it to the last 16 of the Champions League but not win the Gibraltar Football League in the same season…​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Just like with Bayern at this stage last season, we had no expectations going into the last 16 match against Liverpool in the Champions League.

Our team contained 7 English players, only two of which had even played Premier League football before.

So it was fair to say the gulf in quality was big.

Yet we managed to keep the deficit to one goal in the first leg.

It still blows my mind how two seasons ago Myles Peart-Harris wasn’t getting into the Huddersfield team in the Championship, now he’s scoring in the last 16 of the Champions League!

We were not at full strength for the second leg though as left back Dionisio and winger Harry Leonard were both suspended after picking up yellow cards in the first leg.

So going into the second leg at Anfield there were two huge questions.

1) Could we pull off one of the greatest Champions League upsets?
2) And would we take more than 10 fans to the game?

Unfortunately it just wasn’t to be in the second leg even though we put in a decent enough performance. Liverpool were too strong and won the game 3-1, although we did have 29 fans at the game which is probably our highest ever away following…

So for the second season in a row we’re knocked out of the Champions League at the round of 16. For a club that still only has ‘National’ reputation, it’s really not bad going.

Normally the Gibraltar league is wrapped up by now but with 3 games left, we’re only one point ahead of Lincoln Red Imps (who dropped points recently or else would be ahead of us in the league).

We haven’t actually beaten them in the two games we’ve played against them this season and face them away from home next

It’s not a Champions League night at Anfield, but it’s still a big game. If we lose then we’re going to finish 2nd in the league!​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

All the worrying about potentially finishing second in the league this season was for nothing, as we comfortably beat Lincoln Red Imps 4-2 to ensure the title was ours for the 6th season in a row.

Ironically we did then lose to Red Imps on penalties in the Rock Cup as they went onto win the competition - for some reason this season we’ve really struggled against them!

Despite not winning 100% of our games like we did last season, we still managed 105 goals in the league beating our record of 99. That’s an average of over 5 goals per game!

Admittedly most of them goals came in one game against Lynx. I still can’t believe we won a match 17-0 yet the title race went down to the wire.

Despite rotating heavily in the league, Sava Veselinovic, Harry Leonard and Danny Murphy were our main attacking trio and dominated the statistics. Murphy is nowhere near good enough to get into our European team, but is a starter in the league due to us needing at least 5 Gibraltar trained players on the pitch at all times.

By finishing in second, Lincoln Red Imps qualify for the Europa League 3rd Qualifying Round with College Europa and Gibraltar Lions entering the Conference League at the 2nd qualifying round.

After knocking us out in the last 16, Liverpool went on to lose to Man United in the final, stopping them from winning their 4th Champions League in 5!

In total we played 20 Gibraltar League games and 20 Champions League games, with goalkeeper Vymola and Peart-Harris starting every one of those European matches.

We’ve got amazing facilities at the club now but the only thing that’s letting us down is the youth setup, which for some reason I can’t seem to ever ask to upgrade.

After two seasons of success in the Champions League we have been given a huge £40m transfer budget. It’s a great budget but the bigger issue is still actually trying to attract players to the club.

Last summer we had to sell star striker Dennis Drakes-Thomas who had outgrown the club and was going to run his contract down. He actually played a big part in keeping Middlesborough in the Premier League, scoring 7 goals in total.

The Gibraltar League is now up to 44th in the rankings, just one place behind League One in England which is impressive considering more than half the clubs in our league are still semi-pro.

Magpies are also up to 30th in the club coefficients table after making the Champions League knockout rounds in back-to-back seasons.

Does that stop us having a 2 star reputation though?

No it does not.

We still only have ‘national’ reputation despite regularly playing in the Champions League. It’s becoming a real blocker in allowing us to sign any players that will improve the squad.

So, despite having £40m to spend, it might not be the busiest summer transfer window for us. We’re not going to be able to attract wonderkids from South America… yet.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

The summer of 2030 saw a few sad departures from the club, the main one being Gareth Gallagher who was released on a free and has a Champions League goal at the Allianz Arena to his name.

There were then two unexpected departures of key players.

The first was Sava Veselinovic who was in the last year of his contract and wanted to leave, so I decided to cash in and get £1.8m for a player that we signed for free 2 years ago.

He was happy to join 2nd tier Spanish side because of their reputation, despite being a vital part of a team hoping to make the Champions League group stage for the third season in a row, it just doesn’t make sense!

Another disappointing departure was teenager midfield Otino. I had high hopes for him but he wasn't interested in a new contract, so again I decided to cash in.

That one might hurt if he comes back to Europe in a few years but there’s nothing I can do until our club reputation improves! There were so many players that were not interested in joining us and even if they were, then they still chose other clubs!

Despite that, we’ve still managed to make some decent signings this summer.

The most impressive is Ilija Krivosija from Bosnia, who joins for £800,000 and looks like he could become a very impressive centre-back in a few years.

To replace Veselinovic, Vitor Roque joined for £1.5m from Brentford who themselves bought him for £14m a few seasons ago, so I am excited to see what he can do for us.

Ben Doak also came in on a free transfer from Liverpool. He’s on a lot of money compared to the rest of the squad but we can afford to pay it with more than £40m in the bank still.

This season we enter the Champions League at the 2nd qualifying round stage for the very first time since our national coefficient has improved so much. This season we’ll face Polish champions Jagiellonia Bialystok

Finally, after spending more than two years at the club Harry Leonard has decided to represent Gibraltar at international level, making him the best player in the team by far.

He’s also joined by Tom Bayliss, who is a 31 year old and a fringe player at Magpies but will be a key player for Gibraltar too.

Those announcements have given me a newfound interest in the national team, which has been pretty uneventful for the last few years despite the slow improvement

We’ve even been offered the England and Portugal jobs such is our success with Magpies.

But who wants the England job when you’re letting Harry Leonard and Tom Bayliss loose in the Nations League C…

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

This was the first ever time that we entered the Champions League at the 2nd qualifying round stage due to the Gibraltar coefficient improving so much in the last few years.

Our team against Polish champions Jagiellonia Białystok contained only one new signing, with Gibraltar captain Jarell Quansah again forcing himself into the team in his 7th season at Magpies.

It was an unconvincing 2-0 win for us in the first leg and an even more unconvincing 3-3 draw in the second, but it was enough for us to go through to the 3rd qualifying round.

During that same period, both College Europa and Gibraltar Lions lost their Conference League matches, yet again not helping us out with the nation's coefficient points!

Norwegian champions Molde awaited us in the 3rd qualifying round, a team we actually beat in the Conference League six years ago in what was a landmark result for our semi-pro side.

During the build-up to that game, our starting left back Rio Dionisio was granted his wish to leave the club by joining Spanish second-tier side Racing Santander after 88 appearances in all competitions for Magpies.

He wanted to leave, and we’ll be able to bring in a replacement even if he’s on loan, but the squad were not happy with the decision.

Whether that impacted the first-leg performance is debatable, but we were massively unlucky to lose the game 1-0 despite dominating.

Despite that, I was confident that the deficit could be overturned in the second leg.

Thaw was until Molde scored an early goal which completely killed any momentum that we had. The team morale after the Dionisio departure was not great but the result over two legs was really unexpected.

So for the first time in 3 seasons, we dropped down to the Europa League but the most annoying thing was that we’re still only managing to get 1 fan to attend away games!

Then we were paired with Białystok again, just three weeks after beating them in the Champions League!

Thankfully it was an easy passage for us into the Europa League group stage despite the lower morale, with a comfortable 6-1 on aggregate.

Elsewhere Lincoln Red Imps won in a crazy playoff match to also make it to the Europa League group stage - it’s the first time any Gibraltarian team aside from us has made it to a European group stage competition in 7 seasons!

And the group stage draw looks very encouraging for us on paper. It’s only the Chelsea game I think we’ll struggle in and we also get a chance for revenge over Molde for knocking us out of the Champions League earlier in the campaign.

And to boost our chances even further, we’ve made 3 loan signings from Premier League clubs all of which add real quality to our team.

Secretly, I don’t really mind dropping down from the Champions League as we stand a real chance of getting to the latter stages of the competition.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

We’re at the point now where we’re the 30th best team in Europe according to the coefficients, yet we’re still a club that can only manage to sell 45 seasons tickets!

On the other hand, we received more than £4m in TV rights at the start of the domestic season which took me by surprise as we’d never had anything like that before.

Considering every other club in Gibraltar now has ‘secure’ finances when most were ‘insecure’ last season, I would say that they have received a large sum of cash too - potentially a game-changer for football in Gibraltar.

Back with Magpies, after getting to the last 16 of the Champions League in back-to-back seasons, I was very excited to see what we could do in the Europa League group stage this year.

That excitement was justified when we smashed Sarajevo 6-1 in our first game, with recent signing Ben Doak getting a 5-minute hattrick. We also made a difficult game against Copenhagen look easy thanks to two goals and two assists from Harry Leonard (who now represents the Gibraltar national team).

Those two games were followed by the most unlucky loss against Chelsea’s second-string team and a dominant win over Clermont Foot.

So at the halfway stage of the League Phase we are in 5th position, with Lincoln Red Imps holding their own in 15th. I would honestly be amazed if we didn’t finish top 8 and really think we could do something special in the Europa League this season.

Despite the success in Europe, our new signings on massive wages have been a bit hit and miss. Vitor Roque has just one goal so far and needs to start justifying his £28,000 a week - his form does not reflect a player that was bought for £14m by Brentford 5 years ago!

We’ve also begun what feels like a new era for the Gibraltar national team. Our new (ish) look squad now has 18 out of 23 players that have adopted Gibraltarian nationality, including recent converts Harry Leonard and Tom Bayliss.

Leonard scored 3 goals in his first 3 games then got injured in what was a whirlwind start to life in the national team.

We’re ranked 155th in the world and our Nations League opponents Montenegro (70th), Slovakia (66th) and Luxembourg (133rd) were all ranked higher, yet I was still disappointed in only getting 7 points in total.

Red Imps striker Bartolo starred in those 6 games with 8 goals, making him the top goalscorer in the whole competition.

He’ll either score a hat trick or drop the worst performance of all time and I kind of respect the wild inconsistency. His goalscoring record isn’t bad either for a team ranked 155th, with 24 goals in 55 games.

Next year (2031) will be a year of qualifiers for Euro 2022, I’m hoping that current Magpies players Aaron Ramsey and Myles Peart-Harris also take up Gibraltar citizenship to help us with that qualification campaign.

Especially as we’re in a group where 2 teams out us Sweden, Slovenia and Ireland will qualify.

We could seriously have a chance of qualification for a major tournament soon, which is very exciting. If it’s not Euro 2032 then the 2034 World Cup is definitely doable for this Gibraltar team.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

The new group stage format of European competitions will obviously not be popular when it arrives in real life, but one thing I didn’t realise is that you can play against lots of teams from the same country.

Our 5th Europa League game was against Rennes, one of 3 French teams we’d face in the League Phase, and was another comfortable win with on-loan centre-back Al-Mansoori scoring twice.

Next up was a wild game in Greece against Olympiakos. More than 30,000 were in attendance, but just one of those a Magpies fan! Vitor Roque obviously heard my criticism from last post by scoring twice in a crazy 6-3 win.

We then had a big wait until our final 2 games, which were in January. That gave us some time to make a significant transfer in the January window.

James Tumilty, forever on the fringes of Spurs, has signed for a record fee of £4.5m and will be our new holding midfielder in our 4-3-3 formation.

We’ve actually tried to sign him on loan multiple times over the last few years, so I jumped at the chance to sign him permanently.

That was our one and only transfer as we whizzed through January and before I knew it we were back playing our final 2 games in the Europa League.

We were out for revenge in our 7th game against Molde, who knocked us out of the Champions League earlier in the season. They were in their off-season and low on match sharpness, so we drubbed them 5-0.

And we matched that scoreline in our 8th and final League Phase match against Paris FC. Those results show that we are clearly one of the strongest teams in the Europa League this season.

So we qualified for the round of 16 with ease in the end, finishing second in the table with 7 wins.

Lincoln Red Imps also surprised many by finishing in 12th to earn them a place in the knockout stages despite having never made the group stage before. It’s very handy for the Gibraltar coefficient and means we’re not improving it all by ourselves anymore!

Harry Leonard and Nikola Dukic were our joint top scorers in the League Phase, with Red Imps’ Bartolo up there too. That makes 2 of the 4 highest scorers in the Europa League Gibraltarian players!

We’ll enter the knockout rounds at the last 16 stage after the teams that finished 9th-24th take part in playoff round.

Considering we finished 2nd in the League Phase, we should be aiming to go a long way in the competition!​

 

[MatthewElphinstone]

Not only can yoou play multiple teams from the same nation, you can also play teams from YOUR nation!

During my create a club save I drew Celtic in the league phase!

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Not only can yoou play multiple teams from the same nation, you can also play teams from YOUR nation!

During my create a club save I drew Celtic in the league phase!

I think I'm used to what the new format will be now but still not a fan! I actually prefer it when you drop down to the Europa League or Conference League if you finished 3rd in the group stage - now as soon as you enter the 'League Phase' of a competition you're there forever!

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Our success with Magpies does not seem to have gone unnoticed as out of nowhere we were offered the Liverpool job.

It will be no Premier League glamour for us though. Instead, we’ll play in front of 500 people at the same ground in Gibraltar every single week!

This season we’re 10 games in and have 10 wins at the halfway stage and we should get a 100% win record unless we have to rotate for European matches later in the campaign.

We also received the news I was hoping for, with Magpies’ Aaron Ramsey confirming that he will take up Gibrlatarian citizenship in what is another huge addition to the national team.

He’ll also be joined by Myles Peart-Harris, who is leaving Magpies at the end of the season but will surely be a mainstay in the Gibraltar national team for many years alongside Ramsey.

So things are looking increasingly promising for the national team and that was backed up by Lincoln Red Imps’ performance in the Europa League Playoff.

Victory over Molde earned them a spot alongside us in the last 16 of the Europa League!

I never thought I’d see the day where 2 teams from Gibraltar were in the last 16 of the Europa League and we were not disappointed with the draw.

We could’ve been paired with anyone - but we’ve been drawn against Lincoln Red Imps of all teams!

Aside from being a landmark match for Gibraltarian football, it should be easy progression for us to make it to our first-ever European quarter final.​

 

[MatthewElphinstone]

I think I'm used to what the new format will be now but still not a fan! I actually prefer it when you drop down to the Europa League or Conference League if you finished 3rd in the group stage - now as soon as you enter the 'League Phase' of a competition you're there forever!

I don't think I'll like it in real life, but in this game having a chance to be bang average and sneak into the playoff round for an extra £8 million can be a god send

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

I don't think I'll like it in real life, but in this game having a chance to be bang average and sneak into the playoff round for an extra £8 million can be a god send

Yeah the first time we got that £8m was a game changer, now I'm taking it for granted but unsure whether I'll be able to build a team that can get further than the quarter finals - but we shall see!

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Lincoln Red Imps versus Magpies in the last 16 of the Europa League - undoubtedly the biggest and most important match in Gibraltar football history.

The two matches would be the first time that we played one another without having to field 5 or more players trained in Gibraltar, which is what the rules are in domestic league and cup games.

New signing James Tumilty was making his European debut in what was otherwise a familiar starting lineup for us.

I thought it would be comfortable for us and thankfully I was right. It took a while to get going but we thumped Red Imps 4-0 in the first leg to all but guarantee progression to the next round.

That also meant that we’d scored a record amount of goals in the Europa League, hopefully there are plenty more to come!

The second leg was simple for us and a depleted Red Imps stood no chance.

And so we qualified for the quarter-finals of the Europa League, an amazing achievement! Our opponents in the last eight will be Portuguese side Braga, who finished 6th in the League Phase.

The unfortunate news for us is that starting striker Vitor Roque will be out for the season with a serious injury.

Key centre-back Al-Mansoori will also be out for the games, so we’ll be relying on a few squad players to produce the goods on the European stage.

It will undoubtedly be more difficult than the Red Imps games, but as we finished 2nd in the League Phase we are still favourites against Braga.

The Europa League semi-final is within touching distance!​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

We’re heading into the business end of the season now, which is not the best time for 3 of your key players to be injured!

It meant that we put in a mediocre performance in the first leg of the Europa League quarter final against Braga and we were lucky to only lose by one goal.

A big performance was needed in the second leg.

And we got one.

What a result in the second leg in Gibraltar! Magpies are into the semi-finals of the Europa League!

Our opponents in the semi-final will be Bayer Leverkusen.

We lost to them 3 years ago in the League Phase, but we have a much better team now and should be able to compete with them.

Leverkusen are also only 10th in the Bundesliga table, which gives me more reason to believe that they can be beaten.

However, they did finish 4th in the League Phase earlier in the season and have a much superior squad, so it’s going to be a tough ask to beat them over two legs.

Elsewhere, the March international break saw Magpies players Aaron Ramsey and Myles Peart-Harris make their Gibraltar debuts after recently switching allegiance from England.

The national team is now looking decent on paper and we recorded a draw and a win in our first two Euro 2032 qualifiers, with another English-born Magpies player, Harry Leonard, scoring 2 goals.

We have 2 home games against Sweden and Belarus at the end of the season and if we get 4 points then we could seriously be in with a shout of taking the Gibraltar national team to their first-ever major tournament.

But attention, for now, turns to Magpies.

We’re just two matches away from the Europa League final!​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

So far in this save we’ve made it to the last 16 of the Champions League twice with Magpies but this was the biggest game yet - the Europa League semi-final.

On loan duo Dindart and Al-Mansoori were both back from injury after missing both quarter-final games against Braga.

And a big call was made in midfield, as I opted to go with the more attacking Fernandes over Macedonian midfielder Cvetanovski who had started most Europa League matches for us.

Our opponents contained players earning £110,000 a week but somehow we were the favourites for the first leg!

And the huge game produced a great result, as we won 1-0 thanks to a goal from Serbian Nikola Dukic - but time would tell if we’d be ruing Harry Leonard’s missed penalty in first-half injury time.

So all we needed to do was keep a clean sheet away from home and we’d make it to the Europa League final.

What could go wrong?

Gutting!

We were so close yet so far as 3 first-half goals from Levekusen saw the progress to the final at our expense.

It could’ve been a whole lot different if we had scored that penalty to go 2-0 up in the first leg…

But instead, our season comes crashing to a halt - just like that.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

It’s been another whirlwind season with Magpies as we failed to make it to the Champions League proper but instead got all the way to the Europa League semi-final only to be defeated by Bayer Leverkusen, who were beaten by Sevilla in the final.

And as usual, we won the treble of the league, cup and Gibraltarian equivalent of the Community Shield

I’m hoping that Lincoln Red Imps will do well in Europe again next season (after making it to the last 16 of the Europa League) and it’s really time for College Europa to do something in Europe as they have a decent enough side (full of ex-Magpies players).

We scored a huge amount of goals both domestically and in Europe, with 8 of our players scoring ten or more this campaign.

Will Andiyapan is close to making the most appearances ever for Magpies and is just two behind current holder Kelvin Morgan

He’s spent 9 seasons at the club and is key because he’s classed as being trained in Gibraltar, so counts as 1 of the 5 players that we need on the pitch in domestic games.

Danny Murphy was once again Player of the Year in Gibraltar as well. He’s nowhere near good enough for our strongest XI but is probably the best Gibraltar regen that’s been produced by any team in this save.

Centre-back Krivosija was a standout performer last season and is being linked with numerous teams including Liverpool. He’s the first player we’ve had who I think could move to a big club and not be out of place so it might be tricky to keep hold of him in the summer.

Gibraltar’s adopted son Harry Leonard was the top scorer in the Europa League with 11 goals in 12 games and has been an incredible signing considering that he came to the club on a free!

However, he wants to leave when the transfer window opens and after all he’s done for Magpies, plus the fact he now has Gibraltar citizenship and plays for the national team, I can’t stand in his way.

There are likely to be some sad departures in the next few months with contracts expiring and players wanting to move on, so it could actually be one of the busiest off-seasons we’ve had for a while.

Especially as we have £20m to spend and I already have some deals lined up.

The club has nearly £50m in the bank despite not making it to the Champions League group stage last season and I’m planning to make a dent in that with some expensive signings in the summer.

Our club reputation has finally increased a bit in the last year, although I still have no idea how we can be considered to only have a ‘National’ reputation.

Especially as we’re now up to 25th in the club rankings - there are only 24 clubs better than us in the whole of Europe!

Our European run, along with Lincoln Red Imps’, has also resulted in Gibraltar moving up to 14th in the coefficients table. It means that this time next year there will be one more team that qualifies for the Champions League which is huge.

Our club facilities are also brilliant and for the first time in 3-4 years we’ve been able to upgrade our youth facilities which should be completed for the start of the new campaign.

Elsewhere, with the national team (yes we’re still manager of Gibraltar!) Euro 32 qualifying has begun and we have a very healthy 7 points after our first 4 games.

We’ve taken Gibraltar up to 140th in the rankings and I’m starting to dream about leading the nation into a major tournament for the very first time.

So things are ticking along nicely for Magpies and in particular this season for the Gibraltar national team.

Next season I expect another Champions League run and am hoping to make it further than the last 16 this time. We could even be in with a shout of making it to Euro 2032!​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

As expected, it’s been a hectic summer with some big departures from the club.

The most poignant was Jarell Quansah who leaves on a free transfer. He was a mainstay of the Magpies team for many years and after opting to represent Gibraltar, he is now captain of the national team.

He was one of four key players from Gibraltar who left Magpies in the summer.

Next up was Harry Leonard who has left for Premier League Burnley (strangely for a former Blackburn player). He leaves after 74 goals in 88 Magpies matches and I would not be surprised if he went on to break the Gibraltar scoring record.

Myles Peart Harris also leaves after an amazing 2 and a half years at the club where he contributed to getting us to the last 16 of the Champions League and also opted to represent the Gibraltar national team.

Other departures were Jack Sodi, who we poached from Lincoln Red imps and was a key player for us in domestic games and Macedonian midfielder Goran Cvetanovski.

Those transfers out meant we had money to spend, so we splashed £4.4m on Sean Flynn from Crystal Palace. An expensive signing but a player I think will improve at Magpies (and yes I’m thinking about 2 years' time when he qualifies to play for Gibraltar).

We then spent even more on Ulises Balbi for £7.75m from River Plate. Both Spurs and Juventus were after him, so the fact he chose us was a good sign. The only issue could be the promise we made to sign another Argentinian player alongside him…

Another big-money signing was fullback Kacper Araszkiewicz for £3.5m from Lech Poznan. He was linked with Dortmund and Bayern so again was a very impressive acquisition.

Midfielder Diogo Prioste cost us just £600,000 from Portuguese 2nd tier Estrela with his contract due to expire and instantly becomes one of our best players.

All of those new signings will be available for our Champions League qualifying rounds, where we will start against TNS in 2nd round this campaign.

This is the first time we enter at the 2nd round, rather than the 1st, and with the Gibraltar coefficient rapidly improving, this might be one of the last seasons where we enter at the qualifying round stage!​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

With depth needed in attacking positions, I decided to continue our spending spree and purchase Joe Gelhardt from Everton for £3.8m - he’s still only 29 years old and was sold for £27m just 5 years ago!

He wasn’t registered in time for the first Champoins League matches but there were still five debuts all together against TNS.

Unsurprisingly, it was simple progression over the two legs as we won 11-1 on aggregate.

Sheriff were up next, a team we beat 10-0 two years ago in the qualifying rounds!

Yet despite having a stronger squad now, we could only get a draw against them in the first leg.

We were heading towards defeat in injury time in the second leg as well, only to stage the most incredible comeback with 2 goals in 2 minutes to progress to the playoff round.

Danish champions FC Copenhagen were our opponents, a team we beat 4-0 in the Europa League group stage last season.

And despite struggling against Sheriff, we had a much easier time in the Playoff Round thanks to a dominant first leg.

So that puts us into the League Phase of Champions League for 3rd time in 4 seasons, which bolsters our finances further with £12m in prize money.

As you’d expect, we’ve got a difficult draw and will face some quality opposition that includes three Italian teams and Man United, which will be the first time we ever play them.

The Champions League money was soon spent as well, with Archie Gray joining the club for £5.5m from Leeds. He has 75+ Premier League appearances and is only 25, so it shows the quality of player that we’re able to attract to the club now!

We also managed to get Dontae Labatt back on loan from Chelsea after he spent the season on loan with us two years ago.

Elsewhere, Lincoln Red Imps were the only other Gibraltar team to make it to the group stages in Europe after qualifying for the Conference League.

We knocked them out of the Europa League last 16 last season, so it will be interesting to see how far they go in the Conference League this campaign.

Lastly, centre back Lewis Gibson has confirmed his loyalty to Gibraltar after spending two years with Magpies, which instantly makes him the best centre back in the country.

We have six huge Euro 2032 qualifiers over the next few months for the national team, which will determine whether we qualify for Gibraltar’s first major tournament.

It would be an amazing achievement to take Gibraltar to a tournament just 10 years into the save!​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

We’re improving Magpies every season and after getting to the Champions League last 16 twice, as well as the Europa League semi-final last season, we can still only sell 50 season tickets!

Thankfully a few more than 50 turned up for the Champions League matches, our first of which in the League Phase was against a strong Shakhtar side.

Summer signing Sean Flynn got his first Champions League goal in what turned out to be a comfortable 3-0 win.

Next up was a crazy defeat to Juventus in Turin. It’s impressive to score three goals but we’re still nowhere near as good as these elite teams in Europe.

That defeat was followed up by two victories, a brilliant win away to AC Milan whilst 7 different scorers contributed to a drubbing against Dinamo Zagreb.

Winger Sean Flynn couldn't get into Championship side Crystal Palace’s team last season, but now has 3 goals in 4 Champions League League Phase matches!

And with those 3 wins from our first 4 matches, we’re 12th in the League Phase table and above sides such as PSG, Man City and Bayern Munich.

In amongst those Champions League games with Magpies were the September and October international breaks, where we had 4 huge games with Gibraltar.

The first was a massive win against 10 man Slovenia but then our defensive frailties showed against Ireland in a 2-0 home loss.

The Slovenia result was significant as they were 80+ positions ahead of us in the world rankings and we shot up to 124th in the standings after that win - it won’t be long until we’re in the top 100!

The following matches in October were a routine win over Liechtenstein and a barely believable victory over Sweden.

Harry Leonard has been unbelievable for us since taking up Gibraltarian nationality, with 11 goals in 14 games for the national team. Since leaving Magpies for Burnley in the summer he’s been regularly starting for them too - it’s crazy that a Gibraltar striker is a Premier League regular!

So we have 2 matches remaining against Slovenia and Belarus. We are so, so close to taking Gibraltar to Euro 2032.

Our final 2 matches in the November international break will decide it all.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

With 2 games remaining in Group I, we knew that 4 points would seal qualification for Euro 2032 and that our match against Slovenia would probably decide it all.

First up we faced Belarus and recorded another huge win with Jaiden Bartolo, one of the few Gibraltar-produced players in the squad, scoring the only goal to put us within touching distance of Euro 2032.

A point at home to Slovenia was all that we needed.

There was no other way of framing it - this was the biggest game in Gibraltar’s history by a long way!

And we bottled it.

So Sweden qualified at our expense. It was either goal difference or the head-to-head record that separated us, but a cruel way to end a memorable qualification campaign.

Next year will just be friendlies and Nations League matches, so the foreseeable future will be solely focused on Magpies.

Games 5 and 6 of the Champions League ‘League Phase’ were both draws, the first at home to Inter and the second a really positive result against Man United, one of the strongest teams in the competition (I just hope we can play like that in the knockout rounds!)

We then had to wait six weeks for our final 2 matches and the drop in match sharpness showed against Celtic, as we disappointingly lost 2-0 to end our chances of finishing in the top 8.

In our final match, starting goalkeeper Vojtech Vymola was out with flu, preventing him from making his 74th consecutive European appearance for the club.

Instead, 35-year-old Dayle Coleing - who will be retiring at the end of the year in this save and is currently the number 1 for Gibraltar in real life - got his first-ever taste of Champions League League Phase football.

And he hardly touched the ball as we thrashed AEK Athens 8-0 in our final game!

So once again, we’ve eased into the Champions League Knockout Playoff round for the 3rd time in 4 years.

We finished 14th in the table with 14 points, that’s the most we’ve ever achieved so it’s proof of progress. It’s now arguable that only 13 teams in Europe are better than us!

Lincoln Red Imps managed to make it to the knockout round of the Conference League too, so it’s once again great to see another side from Gibraltar doing well in Europe.

We’ll find out our playoff opponents shortly, but there’s a busier-than-expected January transfer window to get through first…​