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

[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…​

 

[FM_TNSSO]

So gutted for you with that Euro's qualifying campaign...I so thought you was going to make it!

 

[Zlatan Lumic]

Wait... Shouldn't the national team still has the chance to qualify through Nations League's playoff? Chances are that even if Gibraltar didn't win their respective division/group the nation who ended on top could've potentially managed to reach the Euro through the qualifiers and thus, the Nations League spot would end going to Gibraltar instead.

Nevertheless, the progression this country has achieved on your save has been absolutely MASSIVE (it literally was one of Europe's punching bags and now it's able to go toe to toe with the likes of Republic of Ireland and Sweden).
Even the league is starting to show serious signs of development, since other teams than Magpies are starting to perform well on European competitions (kinda waiting for College Europa to start doing some lifting of their own not gonna lie xD).

Keep up the terrific job.

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

So gutted for you with that Euro's qualifying campaign...I so thought you was going to make it!

Wait... Shouldn't the national team still has the chance to qualify through Nations League's playoff? Chances are that even if Gibraltar didn't win their respective division/group the nation who ended on top could've potentially managed to reach the Euro through the qualifiers and thus, the Nations League spot would end going to Gibraltar instead.

Nevertheless, the progression this country has achieved on your save has been absolutely MASSIVE (it literally was one of Europe's punching bags and now it's able to go toe to toe with the likes of Republic of Ireland and Sweden).
Even the league is starting to show serious signs of development, since other teams than Magpies are starting to perform well on European competitions (kinda waiting for College Europa to start doing some lifting of their own not gonna lie xD).

Keep up the terrific job.

It was a brutal way to not qualify, especially after somehow beating Sweden away! It looks like Slovakia will be the team in the Nations League playoffs as they won the group we were in two years ago.

We're also very close to getting the coefficient into the top 10, which would mean automatic qualification to the Champions League group stage - I have no idea how competitive the other Gibraltar teams will be in Europe in the next few years, especially as College Europa have been awful in the last few years and can't even win a Conference League qualifying match!

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Normally January is a quiet period for us as we play our final two European group stages matches.

However, January 2032 was probably our busiest ever window with multiple outgoings and incomings.

The first to leave was Will Alves who sold to Racing Santander for a low amount with his contract expiring in six months..

After being at the club for over two years, I was certain he’d choose to switch allegiances to Gibraltar but for some reason he won’t commit to the national team…

His indirect replacement was Marko Lorbek, a Slovenian midfielder signed for £2.5m who I have only just realised scored for Slovenia in that heartbreaking match for Gibraltar to deny us qualification for Euro 2032.

Next in for us was goalkeeper Eddie Booth, formerly Sunderland’s number one who is an upgrade on our current goalkeeper Vymola and who I’m hopeful will take up Gibraltar nationality in two years time.

Then full back Kacper Araszkiewicz, who was only signed 6 months ago, was the next to leave after Leeds triggered his release clause of £5.25m.

We had already signed Rob Blackwell for £3.3m from Man City at that point, but he’s not rated highly by my assistants or scouts. The fact he has still has potential to fulfil at 24 years old makes me think we can improve him at the club though.

Then we had to deal with an Ilija Krivosija transfer saga as the most prominent clubs in Europe were circling around him.

So much so that offers were being accepted by the board of around £6m.

They wouldn’t even accept a loan back, as if they could not understand the benefits of keeping our star player for the Champions League knockout rounds.

But as more and more bids came in, we just kept on responding to them as late as possible. So much so that the deadline passed and his deal fell through.

We somehow managed to get him to sign a new deal as well…

The final bit of transfer news was disappointing as Ben Doak would not renew with us and has signed a pre-contract agreement with Celtic.

That makes it three new signings to add to the Champions League squad, so they will all be thrown straight in at the playoff knockout phase where will we play Porto.

It’s a decent draw for us and we actually beat them 6-1 three years ago so I’m expecting progression to the next round.

If we do beat our Portuguese opponents, then that will mean we make it to the last 16 of the Champions League for the third time in four years.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

We’re at the stage now where we’re quite comfortably making the Champions League knockout rounds but the tricky part now is getting to the quarter-final stage.

In fact, the Knockout Play Off Round (or the last 32) is now a stage we are comfortably getting through. So much so that Portuguese champions Porto were brushed aside over two legs.

We were paired with Juventus in the last 16, a slightly annoying draw as they were the team that beat us 6-3 in League Phase just a few months ago - and they also finished 3rd overall!

Lincoln Red Imps also made it to the last 16 of European competition for the second season in a row by defeating Rosenborg.

It’s good to see another Gibraltarian team doing well in Europe, but the last 16 of the Champions League is a different level!

We were at that stage for the 3rd time, after losing to Bayern Munich in in 2029 and Liverpool in 2030. Only 3 players from that match Liverpool match were starting here but there was still a gulf in quality between the two teams.

So we weren’t favourites to go through, but losing 2-0 despite having the superior xG really was a killer.

It gave me hope for the second leg, but a second-half red card from Oliver Churchill, on loan from Man City, extinguished any faint hope of progressing.

So it was a 3-0 defeat on aggregate as we went out at the last 16 stage for the 3rd time.

Sadly, Red Imps could not reach the quarter final stage either as they bowed out against Freiburg in the Conference League last 16.

Getting to the quarter-finals of the Champions League with Magpies and defeating the truly elite clubs in Europe is a task that I feel will take a looooong time…​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

2031/32 was our 10th season in charge of Magpies where it was another clean sweep of domestic honours and another defeat in the Champions League last 16 - the third time we’ve crashed out at that stage in the last 4 seasons.

For just the second time we had a 100% win record in the league and the improved coefficient means that 5 Gibraltaran teams will be in the European qualifying rounds next season.

Lincoln Red Imps will join us in the Champions League qualifying rounds whereas College Europa go straight into the Europa League 3rd qualifying round - surely they’ll make the group stage for the first-ever time next season!

We played 42 games in all competitions, 20 in the league, 18 in the Champions League, 3 Rock Cup games and 1 Pepe Reyes (the equivalent of the Community Shield).

2 of our key players have both been in the news in real life recently, with 17-year-old Archie Gray making his Leeds debut in their first match of the season whereas Vitor Roque is being heavily linked with a move to Barcelona - both are in their prime for us with this save now being in 2032!

Roque is amongst a number of players that are wanted by other clubs, so I’m hoping we can keep most of our key players in the upcoming transfer window.

Danny Murphy was our player of the year with 18 goals and 12 assists in the Gibraltar league. He’s in the team purely because of Gibraltarian league registration rules and could even be replaced next season as I look to give game time to Gibraltarian youngsters with potential.

Striker Joe Gelhardt was 3rd in the European Golden Shoe, such is the growing emergence of the Gibraltar league (every club is now a professional club.)

We end the season with £45m in the bank and the Champions League money means we’ll do well to struggle financially now!

And we have another decent transfer budget from the board, with £20m to spend in the summer.

Facilities remain the same and despite average youth facilities, we’re starting to produce some decent Gibraltar regens that could make it to the national team (but will be nowhere near good enough to break into the Magpies first XI).

It was a big season for the national team too as we narrowly missed out on qualification for Euro 2032.

Still, it’s been a year where the national team has really progressed and we’re up to 122nd in the world rankings. Next year I think we can break into the top 100 and have a shot of winning our Nations League C Group as well.

Another interesting statistic is that we’ve finally broken the average highest attendance in Gibraltarian league history. It’s crazy that it’s taken 10 seasons to break the record but finally showing that the club reputation is growing…

…or so I thought, apparently our reputation hasn’t changed this season.

That’s despite us moving up 7 places in the European club rankings to 18th - how can the 18th best club in Europe only have a national reputation?!

But the biggest achievement of them all is that Gibraltar is up to 9th in the nation coefficients table.

It means that the team that finishes 1st in the Gibraltar League will qualify directly for the League Phase of the Champions League - a huge achievement for Gibraltar football.

It means the upcoming season will be the last where we’ll have to negotiate the qualifying rounds of the Champions League, which poses an interesting question…

Rather than inevitably getting knocked out of the Champions League last 16, do we throw a Champions League qualifying match in order to drop down to the Europa League and try to win that?​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

We’re back.

It’s the start of season 11 at Magpies and I’m hoping 2032/33 is the year where we either get past the last 16 of the Champions League or go all the way in the Europa League.

To help us in our quest for European success we’ve spent big money on Patrick Leganger from Lillestrom - £5m brings the teenager to the club and he’s a player I’m hoping can develop significantly.

Wojciech Sobczak also joins for £2.8m from Lech Poznan. It’s another high profile youngster at the club and we finally seem to be at a point where starlets from Norway/Poland/Serbia/Czech Republic etc. are actually interested in joining us.

As is now the norm, we also made a couple of loan signings from Premier League clubs to strengthen our starting XI further.

Robert Witham comes in on loan from Liverpool to be our first choice left back - he has wonderkid status but my scouts/coaching staff only consider him to be 3 stars. That’s either a sign of how far we’ve come as a club or how poor their judgement is…

Ricardo Retamozo, another Liverpool player, joins him at the club and provides some added quality in an area we’re already quite strong in.

Whereas the focus on the save always has and always will be on Magpies and the Gibraltar national team, I’m also invested in how other Gibraltar clubs fare in Europe now that the nation coefficient has improved so much.

2032 was the first year where we had five clubs in the European qualifying rounds, but Mons Calpe and St Josephs (who finished 4th and 5th in the league last season) have already been knocked out by teams from Romania and Moldova!

College Europa are also trying their best to get knocked out before reaching the League Phase but will get their chance in the Conference League 4th round after being knocked out of the Europa League.

On the other hand, Lincoln Red Imps are playing in the Champions League for the first time because of the coefficient improvement and have already managed to get past Swiss side Lugano, which already guarantees them group-stage European football for the 3rd consecutive season.

As champions of Gibraltar, we now enter the Champions League at the 3rd qualifying round where we will face Astana.

It should be simple enough for us to reach the League Phase of the Champions League.

But the question is whether I actually want to because it’s so competitive in the Knockout Phase…​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

The two Magpies fans that made the trip to Kazakhstan would’ve had a great time seeing a first-half Vitor Roque hattrick, as we easily progressed against Astana in the Champions League 3rd qualifying round.

That paired us with Icelandic champions Breioablik in the Playoff Round.

It was now time for the conundrum.

Gibraltar are 9th in the nation coefficients table, meaning that from next season the league winners will go straight into the Champions League group stage. Since we win the league every year, that team will be us.

We’re at a point where our team is good enough to progress to the knockout rounds of the Champions League, but not good enough to beat the elite teams.

As a result, we’ve been knocked out at the last 16 stage three times - it’s a statistic that makes the Europa League and Conference League look ever more appealing…

So the decision was made. I didn’t want to completely throw the game but a weakened team was put out against Breioablik as I can honestly say I didn’t really care what the result was.

If we won, the Champions League League Phase was our fate - if we lost then we’d drop down to the Europa League which I would not be concerned about.

And sure enough, the backups could not do it.

The aggregate loss means that we drop down to League Phase of the Europa League, which gives us a far better chance of winning the competition, but the irony is that there are still huge teams in there like Chelsea and Spurs.

Some of the players were not happy that we’re not in Champions League, but promising them that we 100% will be next year has kept them on side (and is guarateed if we win the league this season anyway).

Lincoln Red Imps join us in the group stage, just as they did two seasons ago when we knocked them out in the Round of 16 in a landmark tie for Gibraltarian football.

But College Europa, the 3rd best team in Gibraltar, still can’t make the group stages of any competition after losing to Vaduz in Europa League and Molde in Conference League qualifiers. In 11 seasons of this save, they have not made the group stage of any competition ever!

Elsewhere there was an unexpected transfer in as I could not turn down the opportuntiy to sign Federico Dindart for £4.5m.

It’s only on a two year deal but I could not turn down a player of his quality for so little, especially as he was on loan with us 2 seasons ago.

We’ve also had one of the most satisfying moments of the save as Elias Jelert became the first player from a non-British country to take up Gibraltar nationality after spending 5 years at Magpies.

For British players it only takes two years before they are eligible for Gibraltar but for all other nationalities it takes five, so it’s amazing the Danish born player has been around long enough to finally take up Gibraltar nationality.

He joins at an interesting time for the national team too. After narrowly missing out on Euro 2032 qualification last season, we’ve started our Nations League campaign with 2 wins in our opening two games against higher ranked opposition.

That resulted in us getting up to 116th in the world rankings, with the top 100 not far away!

So after engineering the European qualifying rounds in our favour, the focus turns to our Europa League campaign

We got to the semi-finals two seasons ago - the aim this season is to win.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Our first game in the Europa League group stage was against arguably the best team in the competition Chelsea. The starting XI contained only 3 non-regen players, Vitor Roque, Archie Gray and Diogo Prioste.

And they put in an outstanding performance.

Despite that victory, we’re still only able to sell 55 season tickets for the upcoming season - I think it’s a slight bug considering we’re now a household name in Europe.

Next up for us in the Europa League were routine wins against AEK Athens and.Kristiansund.

The Europa League was becoming a breeze and I was anticipating 8 wins out of 8 League Phase games.

But why make it easy when you can lose to Brondby?

That extremely unexpected loss means that we’re 7th in the table, with the top 8 qualifying directly for the last 16 which I expect to do comfortably despite that shock loss.

There’s also been an emotional departure as club icon Aaron Ramsey left for the UAE. His contract was up at the end of the season and he had become more of a squad player in the last few years.

After joining on a free transfer 4 years ago he made 117 appearances, with 36 goals and 41 assists, gained Gibraltarian citizenship and is now the key player for the national team.

He’s a big reason why the national side is developing rapidly and it contains just five players who actually came through the youth system in Gibraltar. The rest are naturalised citizens after spending 2+ years either with us at Magpies or with Red Imps.

And Ramsey played a big part in ensuring that we won our Nations League group which contained higher-ranked nations Georgia and Israel.

It means we’ll get a second chance of Euro 2036 qualification should we fail to get through in the normal way (something which we missed out on by one point for Euro 2032).​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Our 5th game of the Europa League was against Spurs, another one of the favourites to win the competition, where we took an early lead only to quickly concede 3 first-half goals

Next up was a narrow victory over Dinamo Zagreb where they missed two penalties - Franco Dindart proved why it was worth spending £4.5m on him in the summer with 2 incredible finishes.

With the final 2 games taking place in January, that gave us a month to focus on transfer incomings and outgoings.

The first was summer signing Wojciech Sobczak who decided to leave after crying about us not signing someone else from Poland. I was quite content with more than £2m profit after signing him 6 months ago.

So to replace him we spent £4.5m on Norweigan Alexander Opseth. We may have overspent on him but he’s still only 18 so has a lot of room to improve.

That was it in terms of January transfer window action, so all that remained were our final two Europa League matches.

The first was a 7-3 victory against Sarajevo where we were 2-0 down after 10 minutes in a crazy game, whereas the final game was a comprehensive win over Gladbach to finish the group stage.

So with 6 wins and 2 losses, we finished 6th overall in the League Phase. It’s actually a bit lower than I thought we would finish but we get direct progression into the last 16 and it was good to see Lincoln Red Imps scrape through in 22nd too.

Domestic football is almost a forgotten formality now with Magpies, we’ve won 35 matches in a row (which is almost two seasons worth of wins) and are also unbeaten in 63 games.

This season we’re on 13 wins from 13 in the league but it honestly does not get boring winning every single match. I’m still invested in seeing which other Gibraltarian teams finish in the European spots now that the top 5 qualify for Europe next season.

So far only us and Lincoln Red Imps have made it to the group stage of any European competition in this save, but I think Gibraltar Lions and College Europa are not far away from doing the same next year.​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

It's been two weeks since the last post but I'm still going with the save - don't you hate it when real life gets in the way of FM?

-

So we’re into February 2033 where we’re hoping to go all the way in the Europa League after finishing 6th in the group stage.

The other Gibraltarian team in the competition, Lincoln Red Imps, managed to beat Malmo in the playoff round to join us in the last 16 draw.

We actually played them at this exact stage of the competition 2 years ago but this year we were drawn against Gladbach, a team we beat 6-0 in the group stage, whereas Red Imps would face Athletic Bilbao

The first leg in Germany was our 400th game in charge of Magpies.

And it was as easy as you like with a 5-0 win where both centre backs scored.

That was followed by a 2-0 win in the second leg, making it seem a formality!

Elsewhere Red Imps were convincingly beaten by Athletic Bilbao but put up a good show in Europe once again this season - it’s just up to the other Gibraltrian teams to do the same.

So confidence was high after that resounding win to take us into the quarter finals.

However that was soon ruined as we were paired with Chelsea - the favourites for the competition - at the quarter-final stage.

Even though we actually beat them in the League Phase, they’re big favourites and are currently 3rd in the Premier League. We’re a good side but beating an elite English club might be a step too far.

In other slightly disappointing news, we were given a really difficult World Cup 2034 qualification group containing France, Switzerland and Turkey.

We somehow didn’t beat Kosovo in our first match and conceded a 97th minute winner to Switzerland despite there only being 4 minutes of stoppage time in the second match!

It seems the tone has been set for the qualification campaign already…

Surely we can make t to an international tournament with Gibraltar at some point!​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Even though Chelsea are 3rd in the Premier League and can spend £375,000 a week on just one player, somehow we were favourites in the first leg of the Europa League quarter final.

The pressure was ramped up even more with the Chelsea boss John Terry bad-mouthing me before the game - we can only pay a max of £42,000 a week on players John, pipe down!

Our starting XI was very young, with 27-year-old Archie Gray (currently at Leeds) one of the oldest players on the pitch.

But a 2-1 loss in the first leg in Gibraltar left it with all to do at Stamford Bridge.

A victory away from home against one of the strongest teams in Europe was wishful thinking and sure enough, we could only muster a draw.

A draw at Stamford Bridge is not a bad result but it’s another case of ‘so close yet so far’ for us, which has been the story in Europe for a while now.

It was not a good month for us at all as we actually lost our first league game in more than 3 years at home to Lincoln Red Imps - although the league title will still be a formality for us.

So despite starting the season confident we could make it to the Europa League final, we end up being knocked out at the quarter-final stage.

We’ve made so much progress with Magpies in this save but getting further than the quarter-final in any European competition is proving to be elusive!​

 

[FM_TNSSO]

Always thought JT was a **** anyway!

 

[MatthewElphinstone]

Always thought JT was a **** anyway!

seconded

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

Always thought JT was a **** anyway!

seconded

Bottled it against Spurs in the final too!

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

So on the weekend that FM24 is here I am still planning on carrying on with this save for the next few months and will continue to update this thread for anybody that is still invested! It might be naivety, but I still think I can actually get Magpies to a Champions League final at some point...

-

So the 2032/33 comes to a close with one loss to Lincoln Red Imps, our first loss in the league for 3 years, the only downside to the league campaign. Whereas in Europe, the master plan of winning the Europa League backfired when we were drawn against Chelsea in the quarter finals.

Gibraltar Lions will be guaranteed European group stage football for the first time next season after finishing 3rd (and qualifying for the Europa League Playoff) as are Lincoln Red Imps who will enter the Champions League 3rd qualifying round.

Mons Calpe finished 5th and will enter the Conference League qualifiers for the second time, yet somehow had the highest average attendance in the league?!

Our club reputation has not changed which still makes no sense, especially as we’re the 17th most reputable club in Europe.

After our Europa League campaign disappointingly ended in the quarter finals with a loss to Chelsea, it was Spurs who ended up winning the competition and silencing John Terry.

Our squad contains 4 or 5 players that are very close to gaining Gibraltar citizenship, including Joe Gelhardt and Archie Gray, so it’ll be interesting to see if they commit to the national team as they will drastically improve the squad.

Elsewhere, summer signing Dindart won player of the year, then scored all 5 goals in our cup final win over Lincoln Red Imps, then got his first call-up to the Argentina squad… It shows the quality of player we now have at the club but he might be hard to keep in the summer!

Now that the Gibraltar competitions have a better reputation, we are now considered one of the best Swedish managers in history too.

Finances are solid - as they always have been - with £34m in the bank of the 2032/33 season.

Yet the peculiar thing about our finances is that we’re failing FFP projections…

To be honest I’m not sure how it all works, especially as the board are giving us £16m to spend next season - if it’s going to put us in financial trouble then I won’t bother! Surely the Champions League money next season will save us?

For the national team, we recorded another narrow loss to Turkey in our World Cup 2034 qualification group which is becoming more and more frustrating.

It feels like we’re so close to something special with the national team but we’re just not quite there at the moment.

After starting the save in 204th, we’re up to 112th in the world rankings but realistically the only way we’re going to get better is if we sign British players for Magpies and they convert to Gibraltarian nationality after being at the club for two years.

Next year will be the first ever season where we automatically go straight into the group stage of the Champions League, such is the improvement of the Gibraltar coefficient (purely because of us and Lincoln Red Imps).

We’ve never made it to the Champions League quarter finals so that will be our aim next season, but I’m also slightly concerned about FFP and whether that means we’ll be selling some of our key players this summer…​

 

[Hampus Silverholt]

The 2033 summer transfer window started with a sad departure, with Will Andiyapan deciding he did not want to renew his contract after 10 years at the club.

He was one of our first signings, one of the first players who switched to Gibraltar nationality seven years ago and was a key player for Magpies in the Gibraltar Football League because he qualified as a homegrown player.

Another defensive departure which was arguably more significant was Ilija Krivosija who has joined Newcastle after the board accepted an £8m bid.

It was a record fee received for the club - not bad for someone we signed for £800,000 - but a big gap to fill.

But it did also ease concerns of breaking FFP rules, especially as we get £2.4m per win in the Champions League which will surely mean we’re not failing FFP at the end of the season.

His replacement at centre half is a temporary solution for now after we signed Paul Hecker on loan from Spurs for the season.

He’s a typical Magpies loan signing from a Premier League club, but a slight shift in policy this transfer window has seen us signing under 20s where possible.

The scouting network is there but players are still hesitant to join a club of Magpies stature even though we’ve been a mainstay in Europe for many years now. Luckily though, we were able to convince 18-year-old Ladislav Falta to join who I think could become a special player.

A similar signing was Milan Cerovic from Vojvodina, who we are retraining as right back as I see that as his position long-term.

We’ve also made some signings that have immediately been loaned back to their previous clubs. 18-year-old Bosnian Edis Hadzic is the most exciting and potentially somebody we could be recalling in January as he is that good.

Our pre-season seemed to go on forever as it was the first time we were not involved in the Champions League qualifying rounds. However it was the usual story for Mons Calpe and College Europa who were both knocked out of the Conference League qualifying rounds.

However there will be Gibraltar representation in all 3 European competitions for the first time with Gibraltar Lions in the Conference League, Red Imps in the Europa League and us in the Champions League group stages.

We’re an established European club now and from our League Phase draw this time around, it’s only APOEL and Heerenveen that we haven’t faced yet in the save. All the other teams we have played at some point in what is now our 8th consecutive season in the group stages of a European competition.

I thought I would also be reporting on 3 or 4 new players switching to Gibraltarian nationality at this stage, but instead those Magpies players such as Gelhardt and Archie Gray all ‘see no benefit’ in taking up Gibraltar nationality.

It’s actually a real sickener as it undermines my recruitment strategy from a few years ago and means it’s going to be very difficult to improve the national team anytime soon!​