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

I’ve enjoyed this story immensely, I couldn’t stop reading. I lived in Gibraltar for a year and watched a lot of the league as well as became involved with the GFA covering games in a media capacity. I also became friends with several of the national team players. More importantly though, I frequented Bruno’s Bar on numerous occasions!
Please keep this going!
 
hal107 said:
I’ve enjoyed this story immensely, I couldn’t stop reading. I lived in Gibraltar for a year and watched a lot of the league as well as became involved with the GFA covering games in a media capacity. I also became friends with several of the national team players. More importantly though, I frequented Bruno’s Bar on numerous occasions!
Please keep this going!
Click to expand...

Cheers mate, it's been an interesting one for sure and I now find myself looking out for the Gibraltar national team scores in the international breaks! Should have a bit of time to keep this going over Christmas so there will be a few more updates in the next couple of weeks
 
I was not optimistic ahead of our Champions League Round of 16 first leg against Man City, and rightly so…

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I don’t really know what you’re supposed to do against players like Haaland and Enderick, who are both earning over £300,000 a week.

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The second leg also went as expected.

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And so we were knocked out of the Champions League Last 16, again!

I thought our season was about to spiral out of control, but thankfully Red Imps lost to Mons Calpe to help us in the league.

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And then a 1-0 win over Red Imps ensured another league title for us, our 10th in a row as Magpies boss

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In those ten years we’ve seen some big improvements to the Gibraltar national team too, but we’re at an annoying stage now where players are eligible to represent Gibraltar but keep turning that chance down!

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The lack of improvement to the national team in the last few years means that our upcoming Nations League group could be painful - especially as we’re up to Group B!

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But that curtails another season as Magpies and Gibraltar boss - another league win and another Champions League Last 16 loss!​
 
This was our 12th season in charge of Magpies and yet only now have we managed to break the attendance record in the Gibraltar league

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In another first, one of our players was called up to the England national team. When I signed goalkeeper Eddie Booth I was hoping that one day he would commit to Gibraltar, but it turns out he’s good enough for England!

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He’s a key member of our young squad and I’m hoping he’s one of many who will stick with us for the next few years as we try and make a real go of it in the Champions League.

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It was the exact same top 5 as last season in the Gibraltar league, with Red Imps going to the Champions League qualifiers, Gibraltar Lions to the Europa League qualifiers and Mons Calpe and College Europa to the Conference League qualifiers.

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And it was another exit at the Champions League last 16 for us, the fourth time we have been knocked out at that stage.

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Despite being a club that can easily make it through the League Phase of the Champions League, our reputation has not changed.

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The lack of an improving reputation means that players like Ilija Krivosija end up leaving the club, with the player we sold last summer now a Premier League winner with Newcastle.

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We do have lots of money in the bank thanks to the Champions League (and even the Gibraltar TV money to an extent), the only question is will the elite players be willing to join? The answer to that so far has been no…

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We’re also up to 14th in the club coefficients, which technically means we’re the 14th best club in Europe now.

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However, the performances of other Gibraltar clubs in Europe means that Denmark has overtaken us in the coefficients table, so we’re now in 10th.

In reality, all it means is the team that finishes 2nd in the league has one more set of Champions League qualifying rounds to go through, so it doesn’t matter too much as we’ll still make the group stage automatically by winning the league.

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It’s still slow progress with the national team and our next best shot of glory is EURO 2036 which seems a long way away. The only recent news of note is that Red Imps striker Jaden Bartolo is now the record appearance holder for Gibraltar.

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So another season ends and we have several good, young players at the club. We need to keep hold of them in the summer and then hope that we can somehow make it past the last 16 of the Champions League for the first ever time next season.​
 
You cant catch a break on the last 16 of the champions league. But keep trying, you will get there.

Thanks to you I will try this challenge in FM24. And i will still follow your save for sure
 
Spiklas said:
You cant catch a break on the last 16 of the champions league. But keep trying, you will get there.

Thanks to you I will try this challenge in FM24. And i will still follow your save for sure
Click to expand...
cheers mate will be interested to hear how you get on - I feel like winning the Champions League is doable but it's going to take 3 or 4 more seasons at least!
 
It’s the summer of 2034 and we’re now entering our 13th season in charge of Bruno’s Magpies in Gibraltar and our 7th year in charge of the Gibraltar national team.

The summer transfer window was defined by a small number of significant transfers. The first was one we already knew about, with striker Franco Dindart leaving for £13m with one year left on his contract.

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That was the record fee for a player sold in Gibraltar and I did not intend to break it, until Man United came in with £28.5m for Marko Lorbek…

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He was one of our best players but £28.5m was too much to turn down for a player we signed for £2.5m just 3 years ago.

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To replace him we made a loan signing with nobody willing to join permanently who would make the squad better - Wellington Teifke therefore joins us on loan from Liverpool for the year.

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We’ve also signed the versatile Brian Juarez for £6m, I’m not sure on his best position but he could potentially be playing a lot of matches at centre back this season.

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The final signing was striker Guillermo Greco, a record signing at £8m who ruins our wage structure but was a player I had to get once I knew he was interested in joining the club.

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So that was it in terms of transfers, despite the big departure of Lorbek we arguably have a stronger squad going into the campaign but we have a very tough Champions League group with 3 English teams and Bayern Munich among our opponents.

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Elsewhere, Lincoln Red Imps smashed Sporting Lisbon but had to settle for the Europa League league phase, whereas Gibraltar Lions are in the Conference League group stage for the second successive season.

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The Gibraltar league is a formality now despite the improvement of other teams in the division, so once again this season is all about our performances in the Champions League.​
 
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